Mass Effect 2: Rapture's Legacy
by Hollowminion
Summary: When an anomalous signal is received during a Cerberus equipment test in the Atlantic the Illusive man sends Commander Shepard to take a look, little does Shepard know that who he finds at the signal origin will provide a lot more help than he could have imagined. AU content with things staying as true to story possible as the story gradually changes.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

 _She's safe, they're all safe, that's what matters now, I'm a dead man dying but to see the sun once more... I'm glad that I could see it with her, I hope she looks after those little sisters, they've had a rougher life than I'll ever live but now it's over._ He turns over, onto his back, and breathed as deep as he could, and he turns to look at his daughter, his daughter of blood and twisted science, but his incredible daughter, none the less. _If only I could speak to you Eleanor, I would tell you how proud of you I am, we never got to spend time as a proper father and daughter but for the years that I spent as your protector, I am glad. But it's up to you now, I can no longer go on, my body is dying one way or another._ He lay back against the hull of the escape sub, he lays there and remembered all those he encountered during his rampage through Rapture, he wished he could have saved Sinclair, he was a man who'd done bad but ultimately tried to redeem himself and he spent his final moments making sure of that and he tried even if he couldn't control himself, and Grace, the first person in Rapture he had met that could see clear enough through the monster he once was to see the individual underneath, who was brave enough to go against the family and help him out, he hoped that she had survived the fallout of his actions.

A shadow across his face, his daughter Eleanor by his side as he lay there. A pity he mused, _I would have liked to see her without this helmet on in my final moments, still it's not all bad_ , he smiled under the helmet, _she'll be free_ , he thought, _free to be who she wishes, with no expectations on her, she'll be free to not be a saint or a saviour, but to be the best person she could be, herself._

"Father, without you to teach me about the surface I'll be lost, so I'll bring you with me, you will be my guide in times where I struggle, always watching over me to be there for me even when no one else will be, I'll need you father." There were tears in her eyes, the little sisters around her tried to cheer her up, one of them offered her a doll, a big daddy doll, looked just like him, Eleanor smiled when she saw it.

Delta also smiled under the dive helmet, his knowledge of the surface was old, fragmented from his years in Rapture, from the experiments done on him and the conditioning they had put him through, but still useful, one last fatherly thing he could do to advise her through all her troubles and be with her always. He nodded to her, it was time.

She leaned over him, needle pressed against his suit, he felt it piece straight into him, a sense of relief comes over him instead of pain and as his vision narrows and tunnels he thinks one last thought. _Don't listen to Dr Lamb Eleanor, between you and me, she's as mad as the rest of them in Rapture._ His smile deepens, and everything turns black.

* * *

Chapter 1

"So, Shepard, how's the team coming along?" The Illusive Man was sat in his chair, suit as Immaculate as ever and cigar smoking in his hand... and as always frustratingly illusive, never giving away his intentions.

The Spector crossed his arms, clearly dissatisfied with the constant calls for various reports. "Grunt will be a great asset for the team and when we come against the Collectors next he's going to get the opportunity to prove how superior a Krogan he is. So, just checking in on your 'investment' or have you something important to say?" Shepard doesn't trust the Illusive Man one bit and as always, the man always put him on edge.

"Everything I say is important Shepard," The Illusive Man tapped the ash off his cigar, "it just depends on who's listening at the time, in any case it so happens that I do have an interesting assignment for you. One of my research teams on earth was testing a new surveillance technology in the Atlantic and picked up an extremely weak and old distress signal." The Illusive Man took a long drag on his cigar, "I want you to check it out."

Sheppard uncrossed his arms, this was something he had to pay attention to, "Ok, but what's special about this distress signal that you want the Normandy to travel several mass relays to answer? Surely you have people on earth that could get there hours if not days before us."

"I had the research team run the signal through our databases, not a single match to any known distress beacons or signals used by the Alliance or any of the Citadel races, it's a complete unknown Shepard, that's why I want you to look into it." He calmly taped more ash off his cigar, "That and the research team believes the distress signal has been transmitting for over two hundred years."

"Two hundred years?" _That's a long time to wait for rescue_. "Are you sure your research team knows what they're looking at?"

"Shepard I always have humanity's best interest in mind and I'll never spend resources or personnel unless I have actionable information that aids in humanity, one day you'll trust me when I say this," Shepard watched as The Illusive Man took a mouthful of whiskey, "Yes, the research team was thorough in their investigation of the signal, after each signal transmission there is a short burst of static, each subsequent transmission incrementally increases the amount of static, we originally believed a possible power failure was causing the residue static but it's too exact, to... intentional, the research leader did the maths Shepard." The Illusive Man leaned back in his chair, "and the math is good. I've forwarded the information to EDI, take a look if you want, it's your team Shepard, do what you think best."

The Illusive Man cut the connection before the commander could respond, leaving Shepard alone with his thoughts. _I have to check it out, he had me at distress signal though I doubt there will be anyone to rescue, still there's nothing that urgent at the moment and it won't hurt to check it out._ "EDI, tell Joker to plot a course to earth, we'll check out this distress signal and then be back on the trail for the Collectors in no time."

EDI's avatar popped into existence, "I would advise against that course of action Shepard."

"EDI?"

"According to the information packet provided by The Illusive Man, the signal originates approximately 2000 meters under the Atlantic Ocean, we have no vessels on the Normandy that are capable of surviving such a depth and if we take into account that this is a rescue mission then..."

"EDI, there is unlikely to be survivors after 200 years, but 2000 meters under the sea? Typical detail he left out there. We need to be able to get down there." Shepard crossed his arms for a moment in thought, "Looks like we're going shopping, tell Joker to plot a course to the citadel, anything you suggest for this mission then EDI?"

EDI's avatar flickered for a moment before she answered, "There is a Volus on the citadel that is currently selling 'slightly' used and refurbished ships, he may have what we require and if not knows who will."

Shepard smiled, glad to have EDI along even with Jokers moaning about back seat driving, "Excellent, gold star for EDI, let's go see how 'slightly' used these ships are supposed to be."

The 'slightly' used ship seller turned out to be an understatement, some of the ships for sale couldn't even hold atmosphere due to 'small' tears in the hull and the amount of shoddy reconstruction work done on the 'refurbished' ships made the Spector wonder whether it would leave the ground in one piece, fortunately the Volus in question was much more interested in selling off parts of ships instead.

"So, Earth-clan, deep sea exploration?" A quite hiss escaped the environmental suit as the Volus was lost in thought, "As it so happens Earth-clan -kssk- I may have what you need, an Eezo drive core unit of -kssk- Salarian design. Very easy to modify and -kssk- can be fitted onto almost any shuttle, it projects a field around the shuttle that greatly reduces the weight of the -kssk- surrounding water allowing the user to glide through the water with great elegance, most fitting for you Earth-clan!" The Volus took a deep breath, it just needed to push the sale a little more and he'd finally be able to afford an environmental suit upgrade, no more sweaty, horrible days stuck in an environment suit with a faulty heating system and this time he'd buy the extended warranty!

"I don't know..." Began Shepard, the Volus was pushing hard but did they really need this particular drive core unit?

"I tell you what Earth-Clan," the Volus REALLY didn't want to lose the sale, "for a measly extra fee of -kssk- three thousand credits I'll also throw in a new model ship, a Geth ship! Only a few of these around considering how they only..." The moment the Volus mention 'model ship' the Spector's eyes lit up.

"Deal!" The Commander had made his decision, after all, where else was he going to get a deal as good as that on the Citadel? With a quick credit transfer the deal was sealed and the Volus just so happened to have the model ship on hand, Shepard walked away happy while Garrus and Kasumi looked on in wonder at their courageous Commander, who had just been fleeced for a model ship that was a thousand credits cheaper on Omega, of all places.

"Do you want to tell him or shall I?" Kasumi whispered to Garrus, knowing exactly how much the model ship truly cost.

"Do you really think that Volus merchant will accept a return now?" Garrus whispered back.

"Maybe, I can be very secretive with how I get the refund." Kasumi had a small smile on her face as turned to watch the Commander approach the docking level for the Normandy.

"Kasumi..." Garrus looked at her, his tone disapproving. "We're the good guys remember?"

"I know..." she grinned "It's so much fun teasing you guys though, see you back at the ship." She engaged her stealth unit and vanished before the Turian could get another word in.

"Ahem, Commander?"

"Hmm? What's up Garrus?" Shepard turned to show his clearance to access the docking bay.

"I don't know Shepard but... what do you think of this mission?" Garrus followed Shepard through onto the dock, "Why hasn't The Illusive Man sent his own flunkies down there? Simply being over 200 years old hasn't stopped Cerberus before and not to mention, coincidentally testing new surveillance technology in the same area where a distress beacons been going off for 200 years? It's way too coincidental."

"I know," Shepard stepped inside the airlock waiting for decontamination to finish, "The Illusive Man's probably already tried to find out what's down there before, only he was probably unsuccessful, possibly lost a team down there, might be something else but he didn't offer any assistance in getting down there, either he doesn't think we need it or he hasn't got the means to get us down there safely. Either way," Shepard passed through the docking tube into the CIC, "I intend to find out what The Illusive Man is playing at and find out what happened down there, to activate a distress beacon only for no one to answer it? I can't imagine what went through their minds." Shepard turned left out of the airlock and entered the Cockpit.

"Joker, plot a course to earth, as soon as the additional supplies along with the drive core unit are delivered and stored let me know, I want to get them installed the sooner the better." He turned to EDI's avatar as it once again popped into existence, "EDI I want you to start pulling up any relevant information from the time period coinciding with the beacons activation, also check any shipping records that may have gone through the area, if we're lucky there may be some record of something unusual in the area."

"Yes, Commander Shepard, though this will take some time as many of the records will be either physical copies or transcribed digital copies stored locally."

"Understood EDI." Shepard accessed his omni-tool and began reviewing the information The Illusive Man had sent about the distress beacon, "Do what you can, if you find anything interesting let us know." Shepard deactivated his omni-tool and turned to Garrus. "Call everyone down to the conference room in an hour for briefing," as Shepard left he called he called back to Garrus and Joker, "and if anyone needs me in the mean time I'll be in my quarters working out how to plug the drive core unit into the Kodiak when it arrives."

50 minutes later, the Conference room

As the squad started to filter into the room they began to question one another, each of them wondering what the next mission was, where it was and most importantly, who was going with Shepard. They all had their specialities and combat styles, but each mission has its own difficulties and obstacles as well as its goals and objectives. Sending Grunt and Zaeed against hordes of Geth and Collectors was a great idea but anything involving fragile technology and they'd be in a tight spot, unless it needed breaking of course, thus team balance was essential with every mission.

Garrus turned to their newest recruit, "So Grunt, how are you settling in? It's not a big room you're in, but let us know, we can order a few creature comforts, I always find having a weapons bench on hand always livens up any room." That last comment got a grin out of the hulking Krogan as he, like all Krogan, liked his guns.

"A weapons bench would come in very useful." The grin on the Krogans face spread as he contemplated the various weapon modifications he could make, but then faded as he paused in thought. "Something to sleep on would be good, no matter how comfortable the tube was, I've spent enough time sleeping in there to last a lifetime." As the Krogan contemplated further on the various other things he may require, the doors to the conference room slid open to admit the Commander Shepard, followed by his XO Miranda. The squad perked up at his entrance, knowing that their next mission briefing was about to begin.

"Alright, since everyone is here already I'll start the mission briefing now, The Illusive Man contacted us earlier today, one of his research teams testing some surveillance equipment on earth detected a distress signal originating in the Atlantic Ocean, so far so good, according to the researcher in charge however and here's the real kicker, the signal has been broadcasting for over 200 years." Shepard paused as he looked around the room, though it was hard to tell, through the slight changes in facial expressions and body language he could just about tell that many of the squad were shocked, humanity hadn't even started to travel to the moon until the late 60's, the technology at the time wasn't available to make a distress beacon last that long without maintenance, hell the technology wasn't needed, the only installations that required distress beacons of that magnitude were space ships or mobile space stations with cryo-pods on board, no other installations required them and humanity hadn't started developing them yet.

"200 years? Even for Krogan that's quite some time," Grunt spoke up, as he looked around the room Mordin spoke up as well.

"Unlikely to be of human origin, technology not available or required at time, possible crashed star ship?" He paused hand on chin, "Possible? Maybe... wait! 200 years predates humanity finding Mass Relays, not one of council race origin, humanity unknown at time, also collision with sea would cause many systems to fail hard to believe anything would survive a crash landing unless in optimal condition, not found for 200 years...unlikely... couldn't have landed on a shallow oceanic shelf, would have been found...hum?" He turned to the Commander, "how far underwater does the signal originate?"

Shepard smiled, he knew Mordin would ask the important information. "The signal originates approximately 2000 meters under the sea," Shepard crossed his arms, "As you can all imagine it's unlikely to be a rescue mission after 200 years, as such we're going to go down while treating this as a technology run, we don't know for sure what's down there or what we'll find. Now I won't ask for volunteers because every time I do that someone feels the need to remind me that we're on a suicide mission as is... Garrus." Shepard pointedly looked at his Turian "vigilante", Garrus just smiled... then winced as it pulled at his still healing face. "So, Mordin and Garrus, you'll be with me on this one, we'll be taking the Kodiak once the drive core unit is plugged in, we'll survey the area initially before we take any action, once we know what we're looking at we can start salvaging what we can and find out why it's down there in the first place. Any questions?"

Grunt put hand up, "After this can I have bed or something? I haven't slept since I left the tube "

Shepard smiled, "We have another hour or two before we leave the Citadel, so you've got time to grab some stuff before we leave, put it on my credit chit."

"I've got a few bits I need to get before we leave Commander." Garrus volunteered, "I can go with Grunt, I'll show him around a bit as we get what we need, (and check out some guns)." He whispered to Grunt.

"I'd best go with em' Shep," Zaeed also volunteered, "someone's got to look after these two, make sure they don't get into any goddam trouble you know." Garrus nodded to Zaeed, guns and gun mods were necessary and if Shepard was paying? Even better.

"Alright makes sense, but you pay for your own guns." Shepard knew Garrus well and Zaeed? Him and Garrus were cut from the same cloth when it came to anything related to guns.

Zaeed sighed, "Come on then, best get started." The three of them headed off, a little dispirited now that they had been caught but still eager to see what guns were available.

Shepard smiled as he watched them go, Garrus had pulled that one on him before. He turned back to the rest of the squad, "Anyone else need anything? Alright we'll leave in approximately two hours, dismissed."

The intercom pinged in Shepard's cabin, Jokers voice announced their current location, "We're coming up on the last relay now Commander, we'll entering the Sol system within thirty minutes."

The Commander was sat at his desk writing the last of the mission reports for Admiral Hackett, just because he was working for Cerberus now doesn't mean he couldn't keep Hackett in the know. "Thanks Joker, once we're through activate our stealth drive and link us into the local comm buoy and send all mission reports to Admiral Hackett, I'm sure he'll be interested in what we've been up to." After all sighed Shepard, who knows what welcome we'll get from Alliance military until we get in contact with Admiral Hackett.

"Aye Commander."

Shepard finished writing the last of the reports before saving them and logging them to be sent once Joker linked the ship linked into a comm buoy, which by his reckoning should be within the next 20 minutes. He stood and stretched his limbs as he made his way to the elevator, he also needed to speak with Alliance Command before he could get permission to enter Earth air space, it wasn't going to be easy getting access back on earth, especially since he was dead, was then revived from being dead AND now technically working with Cerberus, an illegal splinter group that had jeopardized council relations numerous times and was wanted by every species in the galaxy for a variety of reasons, none of them good. The elevator continued down to deck 3 - crew quarters, he had time to grab a coffee before he needed to contact Alliance Command.

"Morning Sergeant Gardner, I'll have mug of your strongest coffee and whatever food that'll keep me going through what I can only assume will be a horrifically long question and answer session with Alliance Command." Shepard was glad he the council reinstated his Spector status, it will help smooth things over with the Alliance.

"How strong do you want your coffee Commander?" Mess Sergeant Gardner grabbed a tin of coffee almost as big as a foot stool and proceeded to pry the lid off. "Also, I actually have some bacon cooking at the moment so how does a bacon sandwich sound?"

Shepard look at the man like he was sent from heaven, "Bacon sounds amazing right now... also, how much coffee can you put in before it's over the legal limit? It's going to be one of those days..."

"In that case Commander, you'll be wanting the 'other' coffee." The mess sergeant put the overly large tin of coffee back and proceeded to pull a much smaller one from under the counter. This tin, though much smaller than the last, looked incredibly ominous with warning symbols covering the outside, along with warnings written in what appeared to be Krogan on the lid. "This stuff is guaranteed to wake you up regardless of whether you want to be awake or not, so how strong do you want it?"

Shepard looked at the Mess sergeant in both awe and curiosity and read the name printed on the tin. "Battle Master? Good name." Shepard smiled, "How much would you advise with this... coffee?"

"Honestly sir? I've never tried it, still there's first time for everything right?" The Mess Sergeant smiled as he removed the lid and peeled back the aluminium foil sealing the tin, the heavenly smell of coffee coming from it could wake a sleeping Krogan, possibly the purpose of it in the first place.

"Alright, you've convinced me, I'll try a cup... just make it a weak one ok? This stuff smells like it would wake up Grunt." Sergeant Gardner proceeded to carefully measure out what could only be described as a dusting of coffee, like a thin film of dust, just enough to barely cover the bottom of the mug and just as he was about to add the boiling water Shepard grabbed his wrist.

"Wait," he gestured to the milk. "Milk first sergeant, you'll burn the coffee."

"It's your coffee Commander." Gardner carefully reached out for the milk, almost hesitant the Commander would intervene. "Still you know your stuff Commander, other than you and your second in command none of the crew really realises, still that seems to be the way most of them like it." He paused as the Normandy shuddered as it arrived in the Sol system and then continued to carefully finish making the Commanders drink and passed it over to him, now was the moment of truth, how good was the coffee?

Shepard took a cautious sniff of the coffee, the warning labels on the tin had him a little worried. "Well back before the incident on Akuse one of my squad mates was a coffee fanatic." Shepard smiled at the memory. "In fact, one day he gathered us in the canteen and asked us to try two different coffees he'd made, one tasted fine, the other tasted great. We asked how somehow got fresh coffee beans all the way out here, that's when we found out he made the same coffee two different ways, one water first... the other milk first. It stuck with me that did, he took the same resources, yet he got the better of two outcomes. There's always a good way to do things and a bad way, sometimes it just takes a little experience to see it that way, I took the lesson to heart after Akuse." Shepard took a final sniff of his drink. "Let's see if this coffee was a good idea or a bad one." He took a small sip. The coffee was good... though the caffeine overdose he got from that first sip sent him coughing and spluttering... "Where did you say you got this coffee from again?" Shepard asked after he managed to stop coughing. He felt as if he had been plugged into the mains, this stuff was better than stims, next time though... less coffee or way more milk.

"Well since we were on the Citadel I figured I'd get some additional supplies on account of our new crew members, anyway the vender said it was coffee made especially for Krogans, figured it would a good purchase." Gardner cringed when he saw the condition Shepard was in after just a sip. "Not the best idea then Commander?"

As Shepard got his breath back from the experience he contemplated on how good the coffee was. "It's alright sergeant, just less coffee next time... or perhaps a bigger mug..."

Shepard managed to cram down a beacon sandwich before Joker contacted him, "Commander incoming call from Admiral Hackett sir, he's on call now."

"Understood Joker, I'll take in my quarters." Shepard brushed off the last of the crumbs off his uniform, grabbed his 'coffee' and headed back up to his quarters. "Admiral Hackett sir." He saluted as the Admiral appeared on screen.

"At ease Commander, I've just read through your most recent mission report, it's actually because of that that I'm speaking to you now. I've spoken with Alliance Command on your behalf and somehow managed to convince them to let your mission in the Atlantic to go ahead. The Alliance is very interested in what's you'll find down there and although the council has reinstated your Spector status the Alliance can't be seen working with Cerberus. As such... we have a work around.

"A work around sir?"

Hackett shifted uncomfortably, "Alliance Command can't publicly be associated with you due to your Cerberus connections, we can however classify it under black ops and keep it classified and off the records. You have permission to dock at the Aegis-1 defence station, you'll have an isolated dock for your use and you'll be able to resupply via the station. That's all I could get for you via Alliance Command, they have... insisted that you are under surveillance for the duration of the mission, though that's up to them how they carry out that surveillance."

"Admiral sir the distress signal originates approximately 2000 meters under the sea, unless they send someone with us there's no other way to keep us under surveillance."

"That's up to them Shepard, they may insist on having someone come with you or they may have recon drones follow you down, we had them back in the early 2000s, so they may use them during your mission, either way commander you have black ops authorisation to complete your mission, show Alliance Command why we put your name forward for Spector status. I trust your judgement Shepard, always have."

"Thank you, Admiral, I'll ensure you get a full report of this mission once it's complete, along with anything that could help the Alliance, though until we get down there we won't know what we're dealing with." This conversation relieved Shepard greatly, if he couldn't get permission to enter Earth with his current... affiliations, then this mission was bust before it could even begin.

"That's more than enough to reassure me Commander, also after reading your report it also occurs to me that you require access to relevant information sources at the time the beacon was activated? I'll have a digital copy sent to you within an hour. Hackett out."

Before the Commander could say anymore the Admiral was gone. _Well that's saved me half a day being quizzed by Alliance Command_ , thought the Commander as he made his way back down to the mess hall, maybe he could get another bacon sandwich and a coffee before they docked.

"Commander, we have received docking clearance at the 'Aegis-1' defence station, we'll be coming into dock within 30 minutes, do you want me to bug them for an escort down to the surface or just order pizza, considering Admiral Hackett got us permission I'm sure I can get away with it." Joker was elated when the Admiral had managed to sort Alliance brass out and secure them an isolated dock for their personal use during the mission, considering who they were technically working for Joker was expecting a full inspection of the Normandy before Alliance brass even contemplated allowing them to dock anywhere in the Sol system, an inspection Joker was certain they wouldn't pass, on account the of the Illegal AI on board and the motley crew they had gathered.

"It's only temporary Joker, let's not push the Admirals goodwill, I don't want to finish the mission only find that Cerberus has to go and build the SR3 because someone got the Normandy impounded..."

"Good call sir, I'll make sure that the pizza is ordered anonymously." There was no pizza better than what was made on Earth, obviously though when you're docked on a defence station in orbit above said planet delivery charges can be extortionate.

"Joker..."

"Fine... no pizza..." Joker turned to find the Commander smiling.

"I'll have a thin crust pepperoni pizza, just... order from the station, ok? I don't think they'll mind that." Shepard missed pizza too, he didn't manage to have it often while growing up on earth, but you never forget your first taste.

"Alright!" Joker turned in his chair to face EDI. "Hey EDI? Check round with everyone else and see what people want, since we're getting pizza we might as well see if we can get a bulk discount. Hey Commander, I'll place the order once the missions complete, no better way to finish a mission."

Shepard left Joker to it, pizza sounded good for a change, Mess Sergeant Gardner didn't make it quite right even with "luxury" food supplies, always slightly too crispy on the edges and way too soggy in the middle, for all his talents, pizza was not one of them. He entered the elevator activating his omni-tool as he went.

"Hey Mordin, how's the Kodiak modification coming along?"

"Going well, though technology is of unusual design, suspect graduate level work, functional but not efficient, may need to follow up on manufacturer, lodge complaint."

Shepard nodded, "Ok well I'm on my way down now to give you a hand."

From what Shepard had read in the instruction manual (it was translated from Salarian into several languages including Krogan, surprisingly) the drive core module was designed to be easily modifiable to fit almost any shuttle, the only problem being that it was also an overwhelmingly complex piece of equipment hidden inside of a box no bigger than a foot stool.

As soon as the doors opened Shepard found Mordin scurrying around the Kodiak while Garrus was handing him tools every few minutes. They had managed to lift the drive core into the Kodiak and had begun attaching various cables to the Kodiak from the drive core unit.

"So, what do you think Mordin? Do you think it'll work?" The drive core was small but extremely heavy, it took the both Mordin and Garrus to lift it onto the Kodiak, but the technology was new to them both, Mordin was a Salarian but specialized in biology, not technology and Garrus knew how to calibrate any gun just by being within a hundred feet of it, but new tech wasn't his thing either.

Mordin climbed into the Kodiak and started to detach the sides of the device and unravel the incredibly complex pieces of equipment hidden away in the two foot by two foot cube. "Sorry Shepard but unsure, never seen nor used technology before, normally on ships, mass effect used fields to hold in atmosphere in case of hull ruptures or whilst doing emergency repairs, this does the exact opposite, along with other functions, it has to extend a mass effect field to cover the entire shuttle and repel or reduce the weight of the local water in order for us to travel easier and do so in a manner that it doesn't conflict with the mass effect technology already installed on the Kodiak. Most interested to see how it works, will be able to give more information once used."

Shepard looked on as the Salarian and Turian began to place mass effect emitters on the inside hull and floor of the Kodiak, these 'should' when activated form a shield around the Kodiak that makes it... submersible and watertight... hopefully. In space you don't have to worry about water pressure interfering with the thrusters, here however the rules are very different.

Shepard climbed on, grabbed a tool set and got to work, this could take a while.

"Commander." EDI's hologram popped into existence in the hanger bay. "I've just finished analysing the data packet Admiral Hackett sent us, I have a preliminary analysis of what may be the origin of the distress signal, do you wish to hear it?"

"Go ahead EDI, we're just about finished here." Shepard, Garrus and Mordin had just spent the last 30 minutes installing the drive unit into the Kodiak, although they were just about finished, a break from the work was more than welcome.

"Understood Shepard, after analysing the data for the time period I found numerous reports of kidnappings and unusual sightings from various towns and villages bordering on the Atlantic Ocean, each one indicating similar circumstances in each case, strange lights out at sea followed by a figure with a glowing face emerging from the sea which proceeds to kidnap young girls between the ages of 7 to 8 predominantly, only then to disappear back into the sea afterwards."

"Crashed ship theory is less plausible Shepard." Mordin poked his head out the Kodiak. "Possible aliens not benign though, possible raiders looking for slaves? Perhaps research vessel?"

"There's more," EDI's hologram brightened as she continued. "Before these kidnappings took place there were numerous invitations sent out from an unknown source inviting experts in all fields of research and study to join together in 'Rapture' for a better future."

"Perhaps crashed ship after all, attempting to gather worker force to aid in repair of ship, maybe use girls as hostages to enforce control? Likely needed a more intelligent work force if alien tech specialists died in crash, easier to get someone else to repair damaged sections if they already have background knowledge in area of study. Intelligent decision." Mordin mused.

"Any confirmed idea why they were doing this EDI?"

"There are obvious religious connotations in reference to 'Rapture', it is also believed that past alien civilizations have visited primitive civilizations and posed as God's using advanced technology to gain an intelligent if fanatic work force, evidence is starting to point at a crashed space ship, the survivors of which trying to repair it in order to either return home or continue their objective."

"Well I'm not sure if we'll find anything useful down there after 200 years but any working technology of unknown origin can only help out I suppose, alright Mordin, how are we doing on the Kodiak? Are we finished yet?"

"Yes, no, almost." Mordin scanned the last emitter with his omni-tool. "Just running diagnostics on emitter distribution, must be correctly placed to avoid any problems once in water, may float on water or sink like stone if problems."

"Alright Garrus give him a hand with the last few bits and then I want you both to get ready for the mission, we'll go down in the Kodiak, find the signal and then descend from there, any questions?"

"Yeah Shepard I have one." Garrus raised his arm. "Have you ever seen a Turian swim? There's normally a lot of splashing with bouts of drowning involved."

Shepard looked at him as he began to walk to the elevator. "Don't tell me that the fearless Archangel is afraid of a little water? Don't worry, if everything goes to plan then no one will have to get wet."

"Really Shepard after all we've been through you should know that the 'Plan' changes at first contact." Garrus tapped his armour and showed off the gaping hole in its rim, a reminder of his most recent close shave with death.

As the doors began to close on the now occupied elevator, Shepard smiled. "Garrus, with all the stuff we've already survived what could possibly go wrong?"

"Alright, Shepard to Normandy we're approaching coordinates now, EDI have you managed to find any other information referring to this 'Rapture' that we should know?"

EDI avatar popped into existence on the Kodiak. "Yes Commander, reports indicate that a local police force encountered a kidnap in progress that coincides with the possible 'Rapture' kidnappings, they fired upon the suspected criminal however they stated that their weapons had minimal effect and several members of force were killed during the confrontation, one officer stated that the suspect fired a bolt of lightning that struck several of the other officers, killing them. This was however written off when several live cables were found near the bodies of the officers."

"Interesting, use of energy weapons as opposed to kinetic or mass effect based, unusual choice, kinetic based weaponry would be better suited if based in sea, perhaps lack of choice for on hand weaponry. Intriguing." Mordin hummed as he began to type away on his omni-tool.

"Thanks for the heads-up EDI, ok we're in sight of the coordinates now."

"Shepard, I don't want to be captain obvious or anything but is that a lighthouse? What's it doing so far from a landmass?" Garrus motioned out the window at a decrepit lighthouse that has obviously seen better days. In fact, much of the tower had crumbled, leaving not much more than a squat building with two very impressive doors that were surprisingly intact.

"EDI what records can you pull up on that light house?"

"Checking now commander, error no data exists for this lighthouse, it doesn't exist."

"EDI I'm looking right at this thing, it's definitely there."

"That might be so Commander however there is no record of this lighthouse ever being built at this location, however records of this time are incomplete, it is possible that the information was lost or destroyed. Record keeping was rather primitive during the time period."

"Alright, we'll check it out before we go down." The Kodiak flew straight to the lighthouse and began to circle its position before finally descending on what appeared to be a set of stairs. Mordin began to run various scans on the building, swinging his omni-tool this and that as it collected data on the building.

"Hum, matches standard profile of lighthouses of the time period." He paused and began calculating how much the building had eroded and how long it would have taken based on local weather conditions. "State of decay indicates over 200 years old, coincides with beacon deployment, likely linked to our investigation, advise further data collection, may hold information relevant to mission."

"I agree with Mordin Shepard, investigations like these always gave us more information on what we're dealing with during my C-Sec days, sometimes more information than what a witness could give."

Shepard looked at them, both were eager to see what was inside the mystery building. "Alright we'll go in and 'investigate', jeez I can't take you two anywhere without checking something out." Shepard paused as he approached the doors. "Though I'm pretty curious too."

"Shepard" Mordin stepped ahead of the commander and waved his omni-tool at the entrance to the building, gathering further scans of the building. "Must advise caution, those doors may be supporting what's left of the building, may cause instability in structure."

Shepard looked over at the doors, compared to the rest of the building they were remarkably damage free, he walked up to them and gave a door a heavy kick expecting to feel resistance, what he got was a solid boom as the door slammed into the floor, it's hinges having crumbled years ago.

"Well, that's one way to make an entrance Shepard, you do have a thing for those don't you commander?" Garrus smiled as he and Mordin walked past the stunned commander and entered the remains of the building, which had surprisingly been reinforced.

Steel beams had been bolted to the interior walls and ceiling, allowing at least this past of the building to remain intact. No lights though Shepard noted as they moved into the building, Garrus and Shepard activate their suit lights while Mordin deployed a drone to survey the reinforcements that had been made to the building.

"Unusual Shepard, state of decay on reinforcements indicate only over 100 years old, someone else found this before we did, would explain why building still stands." Mordin looked round. "Also, no stairs leading to top of where remaining tower should be, indicates lighthouse maybe a front. Real secret is below our feet." Mordin pointed out the stairs heading down into the structure.

"Alright well everyone keep an eye out, we'll head on down the stairs and see what we can find." Shepard pulled his pistol out, after ensuring it was operating correctly he began to move down the stairs, into the darkness below... until Mordin's drone rushed past seemingly eager to both scan the building and light up the entire place. Shepard sighed, the darkness would have made it interesting, though now it would be easier to see what was ahead. As the squad descended the staircase they found several heavily damaged statutes bolted to the walls and the crumbling remains of one statute on the floor from where it's bolts had been eroded away. At the very bottom of the staircase they found what could only be described as a metal bubble suspended above a hole filled with water, of which the drone Mordin had deployed was going crazy as it shot back and forth around the bubble, scanning this way and that all the while downloading the scan data to Mordin's omni-tool.

"Commander according to drone, this device is actually a submersible, has had repairs done, no Eezo inside, or any mass effect based technology, primitive yet effective for estimated construction date, likely used to bring personal down from surface, certainly not for resource transport, though additions to internal and external mechanisms suggest capable of carrying loads, unsure of what however." Mordin checked over the scan data the drone had collected, human design he mused, perhaps not alien presence after all, more data required. Interestingly he noticed, still operational the drone couldn't detect any problems in the structure of the submersible, well maintained.

"You know Shepard, this could essentially be a checkpoint, back on omega some smuggling rings use them to ensure security at their operations, this could be a similar thing." Garrus began checking around the submersible. "Likely be a one-man security piece, this thing wouldn't have great movement under water, a nice slow target. Anyone could force their way in but if they didn't have correct pass code for the other end, they'd get blown up by torpedo. All they'd loose is the submersible and maybe the security guy, but still ensures the operation can continue without a rival gang taking over, smart."

Shepard looked around, trying to see if there was anything else of interest in the room. "I take it that the water hole there is the deployment point for the submersible, anything down there we should be worried about?"

Mordin directed his drone to just above the waterline. "Initiating composite scan, hum, scan data indicates this is sea water, likely as you say, it's a simple deployment point."

"Alright if that's everything then let's head back to the Kodiak and test out its new upgrades, one way or another the Alliance will want to hear of this." They ascended the stairs and back out through the doors of the building, door... one was on the floor. "Alright Garrus your piloting, Mordin get those upgrades activated and we'll start homing in on the distress beacon. Let's find out what's going on down there." The Kodiak hovered just above the waterline and then slowly began to descend into the ocean. 5 meters down. 10 meters down. 15 meters down. 19 meters down. 22 meters down. 24 meters down. 24 meters. They had stopped.

"Garrus why have we stopped? Is there a problem with the upgrades?"

"I don't know Shep, the Kodiak is at full thrust to descend but nothing is moving, there is definitely power going to them but I'm not getting any response." Garrus was fiddling with the controls and dials on the console in front of him, trying to get the Kodiak moving again.

"Ah, suspect problem, try easing off the thrusters." Mordin was also active, trying to identify the problem while scanning the drive unit they had plugged into the Kodiak.

"Alright I'm decreasing the thrusters output now." Was all Garrus had time to say before the Kodiak shot up in the water, steadily ascending despite their need to go deeper.

Soon they were back where they started, on the surface. Though Mordin now know what the problem was. "Drive unit massively decreases the mass of the water around us, water gets displaced by heavier water around it, water then shoots upwards like hot water spot in cold water, deeper we go the more powerful the water will shoot towards surface, 24 meters, the Kodiak would require more thruster power to counteract upwards thrust of water, need alternative method down to descend to beacon. Luckily alternative method available." He looked towards the remains of the lighthouse.

Shepard caught onto what Mordin was thinking and he too looked at the light house, today was going to be an interesting day he sighed. "Alright Garrus let's get back to the lighthouse, I just hope that thing still works."

Garrus nodded glumly, he didn't like going in the water as is, now they have to do it in a vehicle that probably hadn't moved in a hundred years or more. Today was a bad day to be a Turian.

Soon enough they were back in front of the submersible, their one way in and out. Strangely enough their luck was holding out, the devise suspending the submersible was working fine and gently lowered it into the water. One last thing to do.

"Shore party to Normandy come in."

"We read you shore party." Came jokers voice over the radio.

"The Kodiak didn't work out, though we have a possible alternative which we are about to try, we may lose radio communications so keep an eye out on the Kodiak, I don't want anyone stealing it while we're gone."

"Understood commander, I'll also get the pizza order in as soon as you finish. See you top side commander." The radio cut off leaving the three in silence as they looked at the submersible.

"It... it looks strong enough, I suppose." Garrus tapped the hull of the submersible nervously, he didn't like the idea of going underwater, but needs must when the devil drives so the human saying goes... Though he never understood it.

"Structurally secure, should be fine according to scans..." Mordin was looking forward to this, though primitive in design it seemed fully capable of making the journey, however long that journey turned out to be.

"Alright let's get in, I want shields up and helmets on, just in case everyone has a buoyancy aid with them, right? Good, I don't want to use them but keep them handy."

The three of them got in and sat themselves down, this thing was fully automatic so hopefully it would take them straight to whatever structure the beacon was attached to. Shepard closed the glass hatch and pulled the lever on the main console and watched as they descended into the ocean. Strange disjointed music started to play through the speakers set on either side of the hatch, they looked in wonder at fishes as they swam by and at a large squid startled by their presence in its ocean. But what startled them most was the city they saw spread across the ocean floor. All glass and steel, broken in places with figures walking around the various tunnels that made up the city, connecting the buildings to one another.

"Ah." Said Mordin as he stared in amazement. "Underwater city... did not anticipate that. Interesting."


	2. Chapter 2 The first step into Rapture

Hey everybody and welcome to chapter 2! I was amazed with the response I got from you guys, so I'm hoping to set this up right and get regular updates for you guys! Ok so the first chapter took me about 2 months to write... yeah...I know...that's a long time...but I hope to be better! Though I will admit that some weeks I didn't write anything at all and others? I wrote loads... anyway I'm sure you're all curious as to how this story is going to go and to tell you the truth...I don't either? This story started off as one idea, I don't know who's going to be in it and I don't know how long it'll be either but I'm going to try my best! So, there may be characters you wouldn't expect, I mean heck the story might go somewhere I never expected, but it'll be good(hopefully) and entertaining (also hopefully) so sit back, relax and hope to God that I stop rambling on and get on with the story! Criticism is always welcome, and I hope to get a chapter out either every 2 weeks or months! If I've been unusually quiet just badger me until I do something, in the mean time I really have to stop rambling and get on with this...is it always this hard? So, with the blanket statement I own nothing and have nothing to do with Bioware the creators of Mass Effect or Irrational the creators of Bioshock, with nothing left to mention I say onwards and let's get this story moving!

Chapter 2

Strange noises echoed within the submersible, the disjointed music combined with the echoing sounds of whale calls caused a unique if creepy musical backdrop to the ocean view and rapidly approaching underwater city, though as creepy as it was it was also hauntingly beautiful, to see the sea life swimming through the middle of the city, to see whales swimming faintly in the distance, faded like a ghost haunting its grave. Mordin wasted no time and was coming up with theories about why the city was there and how it had been maintained these presumed 200 years.

"Interesting, amount of effort required to build a city of such size, incredible, thousands no, tens of thousands of hours required regularly to maintain it, resource requirement alone, staggering. Technology of time primitive, resource intense project of this scale infeasible, no singular government aside from Hanar, would consider it. Not government sanctioned, no record of it exists, private city? No hidden city! Makes more sense, perhaps social experiment? Isolating a city from the rest of the world? No no no, requirement unneeded unless such an event was expected, perhaps testing habitat designs for future planet colonisation? No, again size and resource intensive, much too large for simple test, perhaps..." Mordin began to mutter to himself, making notes on his omni-tool, this was Shepard thought, going to be an interesting day to say the least.

He watched as the submersible glided closer to one building in particular, a nondescript building that seemed to have been designed in mind as a transport hub, connected to much of the city, though several of the connecting tunnels seemed to be damaged in some way, though one rather obviously had what appeared to be part of a plane embedded into it, flooding the tunnel. _If the rest of the city is like this how are we supposed to find the distress signal?_ He thought _, it could be anywhere, it could be a building that's completely flooded, this day keeps getting better and better._ He turned and looked at Garrus who was completely agog, his sight fixed on the city.

"Garrus? Hey Garrus buddy you alright?"

"Yeah, Shepard I'm fine...I'm ah... lost in the moment..." Garrus scratched at his still healing wound. "Is... Is this normal Shepard? I'm mean I was expecting to see the remains of a space craft... and instead we find a city...under the ocean..."

"The whole being underwater thing getting to you right?" Shepard placed his hand on the Turian's shoulder. "It'll be fine, though the mission objective has changed now... we can still get it done, find the signal, find out what happened, get anything useful, get back to the ship, get pizza. Done."

"It's not that Shepard." Garrus looked around submersible, noting every now and then the creaking noises of metal staining from the high pressure mere inches away from the occupants. "Ok so maybe it's a bit about going underwater, Turian's don't swim well but I mean look at this Shepard, there is a whole city out there, built in secret, maintained in secret, plus the only way down is in a submersible with no Mass Effect drive and not even a hint of safety protocols anywhere... even Omega had handrails to prevent people getting hurt by accident." Garrus shrugged and looked around the submersible they were in. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I felt safer on Omega, with all the mercs after me."

"It's the lack of control, on Omega you knew what you could do, you knew where you could go, and you knew your escape routes. Here? We have no idea what to expect, no idea what or where is safe and the only escape route is our only way back. I'm not surprised you felt safer on Omega, it was." Shepard grimaced, he didn't feel especially at ease either. Far too many things could go wrong and all it would take is one to take out the whole team.

The quiet muttering stopped. "Hmm Shepard, maybe able to re-establish communication with the Normandy, STG training, will leave drone in submersible, will then act as a relay to the Kodiak and through the Kodiak the Normandy." Mordin turned around, his muttering turned into humming noises as he started to adjust the settings on his drone, optimising it for use as a communications relay.

"Was there anything STG training didn't cover Mordin?" Garrus looked at the humming scientist as he bobbed around his drone as it steadily changed shape to suit its new purpose, Mordin moved it against a wall and affixed it in position, it would stay here until Mordin gave it new orders.

"Singing skills, surprisingly useful, once held off several heavily armed attackers, believed me to be drunk but were amazed at my singing prowess, they didn't live to regret, their mistake." Mordin continued to hum as he finished typing in the final commands for his drone on his Omni-tool. "Should be working now Commander, suggest attempting contact the Normandy." Mordin returned his attention to the viewport as the submersible approached what they thought was a transport hub.

"Shore party to Normandy, come in Normandy." _If this works_ thought Shepard _then finding the beacon will be a damn sight easier, the main problem will be navigating these buildings._ _With the Normandy's help we'll know which direction to travel and will have support from EDI over the comms._

"This is Normandy, we're hearing you loud and clear Commander, though your signals a little buggy Commander, EDI can't pin point your exact position, it seems to be jumping all over the sea floor." Hearing Jokers voice over the comm was a relief for all the occupants of the submersible, with the comm up they had access to a lot more technical expertise and having EDI around was always helpful. Plus, in the event something went wrong... there was someone listening.

"Good to hear you Joker, Mordin's turned his drone into a relay so we can get a signal to you, so it might be what's causing the problems, anyway I'm uploading footage from our suit cameras now, EDI what do you make of it?" A few taps on his Omni-tool and the data was away. Shepard would have loved to see the look on Jokers face when he saw the footage.

A miniature EDI popped up on Shepard's Omni-tool. "Commander, preliminary analysis indicates that this is "Rapture", more information required for further analysis." EDI's pop up shrunk down and vanished from the Omni-tool, leaving behind a very large data packet. "Commander I have taken the liberty of downloading any information considered viable to the mission in the event case that communication is lost."

Shepard began checking through the information EDI had downloaded, most of it he had already heard or been told but there was new information that he hadn't heard, a report indicated that an individual by the name of Mark Meltzer was investigating the kidnappings when his daughter was also kidnapped by something that came from the sea, he pursued but he couldn't save her, according to the other reports here he travelled to various places chasing clues to hers and the other girls kidnaping, eventually he vanished and it's not known what happened to him.

"This one's for you Mark, it might be late but let's see if we can find out what happened on your behalf." Shepard closed the file and looked through some others, nothing else especially jumped out but he made sure to read up any eye witness reports. Some were wildly different from one another but each time the events were located near the sea, but what stuck out most was that each time it was young girls who were kidnapped, not young boys or adults or anything, young girls... each and every time.

"Shepard." Garrus nudged the Commander, breaking him away from his thoughts. "Looks like we're about to pass under whatever building that's supposed to be." Shepard looked out the porthole to see that the building they had been approaching earlier had gotten much bigger, and that they were passing under it. _Odd, I was sure we would be docking with that building, though I am surprised_ Shepard mused, _the guidance systems work remarkably well considering this this thing is probably as old as the city..._ BANG. Everyone jumped as the sound echoed inside the submersible, each of them hastily checking their suit seals. _Ok... maybe I should be more worried about this._

"Guys, what's our status? Did we hit something?" Mordin was running scans with his Omni-tool all over the inside of their once considered 'safe' submersible, Garrus was peering through the viewport, trying to identify what they had hit and how bad the damage was. Garrus got back to him first.

"Nothing to see Commander, we're in the shadow of that building which isn't helping, we are still moving though, and we're ascending now so I'm not sure if that's a good thing... but I can't see any obvious damage, nor what we hit."

"Mordin, what do your scans indicate?"

"Scans indicate air pressure is stable, no gases are leaking, and all systems appear fully functional." There was a collective sigh from everyone, no one wanted to be 2000 meters underwater in a damaged submersible. "Ah, suspect noise related to docking procedures, engines are no longer operating yet we are ascending, possibly a docking clamp?" Mordin aimed his Omni-tool to the ceiling and began scanning again. After a few tense moments he smiled. "Yes. Can confirm, some sort of docking clamp is drawing us up into the structure we just dived under."

"Normandy to shore party, come in. You ok down there? EDI detected a spike in your bio signs, specifically adrenaline." A voice emerged from the drone attached to the wall, Jokers voice.

"We're okay Joker, just had a surprise panic moment, turns out the big scary noise was just the docking procedure." Shepard radioed back to Joker giving him an update of the situation.

"Understood Commander, just be careful down there, EDI's tried but she still can't get a clear pinpoint on your location, that's making us all a little worried up here. Especially since we can't launch a rescue mission to find you if things go south."

"We'll keep you posted Joker, I think that this is our stop." The viewport, that had been in shadow from the building they had gone under, was finally clear for the first time in several minutes, they were just starting to rise above the water. Mordin, Garrus and Shepard watched as the water ran off the viewport, dripping down into the water below them.

"CLANG" The door opened, signalling their arrival. Their arrival point, shrouded in darkness, lit with nothing more than a few sporadic lights.

"Gentlemen, I believe we have arrived." Shepard looked at his friends and smiled. "Who wants to go first?"

In the end they took their time and decided who was first out the door using a long time military tradition... Rock, Paper, Scissors. Garrus lost in the first round and was disqualified while Mordin and Shepard took 10 attempts to determine who went first and second, Mordin initially matched with several draws against Shepard until he began cheating through blatant use of his adrenaline rush to give himself the advantage, Shepard won on the 10th attempt. Annoyed Joker and Dr Chakwas to no end when his suit sensors continually announced a spike in adrenaline for the commander.

"Uh Commander I've just had a message through from Dr Chakwas, she says if you keep messing around with your adrenaline like this she's going to add adrenaline junky to your medical history, just under ex-human illegal experiment subject for Cerberus, you know... just for future reference."

"It's all good Joker, we know how we're working this now. Have you received any news from alliance Command on how they're going to keep us under surveillance down here yet?" Shepard did one last weapons check and made sure to load shredder rounds, always good to be sure your gun is fully functional and that you have the best advantage you can... and considering how much glass there appeared to be in the city he didn't want to inadvertently flood the room or building they were in, so... that meant armour piercing rounds were out of the window (forgive the pun) until they knew what damage they could do.

"Nothing yet Commander, though Admiral Hackett has requested suit cam footage to be added to the mission report, he's interested in what has been hiding under the sea all this time."

"Well we're about to find out Joker, all right guys, let's get out there and make it happen. Mordin if you see anything interesting scan it, Garrus if it looks dangerous keep it in your scopes, if its hostile - take it out. We'll scout out our initial area and move from there. Any questions?" Garrus just smiled and pulled out his Mattock while Mordin simply activated his Omni-tool, they were as prepared as they could be, all that was left was for them to find the distress signal and find out what occurred here. "All right, follow me."

Shepard stepped out of the submersible... and into Rapture.

Shepard scanned the room, exits, entrances, hostiles and anything that stuck out, those were the priorities. While there were no clear signs of hostiles and there was only one exit, there was evidence that something unusual stuck out. The room was shrouded in darkness along with a corridor just beyond it, the few working lights were sporadic at best and the way the lights left large swathes of the room in darkness set Shepard's teeth on edge. Various shapes could be seen in the darkness and the flickering lights only distorted them further, making it harder to see what was in the room.

"Garrus, Mordin, let's move up, Mordin can you deploy another drone? We'll need the light." As soon as Shepard mentioned it a drone sprang in existence and began hovering around the ceiling, a few seconds past and the drone began to emit light, low at first to avoid blinding the squad but gradually getting brighter until it illuminated the room, it was then Shepard saw what those unusual shapes in the darkness were... it was luggage, some spilled open, the contents strewn over the floor in heaps. The remains of clothing lumped together, nothing more than a pile of mould now. In other areas there were different items, gold watches, jewellery, photo frames and several old-style cameras... someone has been searching for valuables it seemed.

"Shepard take a look at this." Garrus had knelt down, examining several of the items. "See these?" Garrus held up several photo albums. "People who are forced to relocate don't always get chance to grab photos very often, but there is a lot of photo frames and albums here, the likelihood is that these people came willingly, but looking at the way their belongings are spread around? Looks like someone had other intentions in mind." Garrus gestured around them, at the large quantity of luggage was stored in the room, many of which were open.

Mordin chimed in, his Omni-tool scanning back and forth. "No traces of blood, luggage is spread throughout this room though no traces of any biological contaminants, blood and some bodily fluids will age over 200 years, but traces will remain, nothing here. Nothing happened to the owners, at least in this room." He scanned a camera, seeking a manufacture date. "Technology is reminiscent of 1950s however."

"Seems these people weren't forced here but they were given reason enough to leave their belongings without bloodshed, perhaps some emergency forced them to find shelter, a flood in the wrong place will bring the entire building down. Either way, let's get moving, this city is huge, and we only have supplies for three days. Let's find the source of the distress call and find out what happened here." Shepard looked around the room, it unnerved him, the flickering lights didn't help matters but there was something else, something that was setting his senses off. The next room they walked into set his senses screaming.

They passed through a bulkhead into the next room, a long corridor stretched out in front of them and all that protected the squad from the thousands of tons worth of water outside the building was a sheet of curved glass. It was a beautiful sight, seeing the city from another point other than the submersible, from this angle they could see several neon signs, still lit from where ever this place drew power. The sight was marred however by the steady stream of water spouting from the frame of the window, and the hulking figure of a deep-sea scuba diver on the other side of the glass that was watching them.

"CONTACT!" Garrus had his gun out and was already aiming to fire at the hulking figure when Shepard managed to stop him.

"HOLD FIRE!" Shepard grabbed Garrus's gun and forcibly lowered it. "Hold fire, Garrus it's on the other side of the glass, you fire, and we get crushed by water pressure."

"Shepard!"

"Easy Garrus it can't..."

"Shepard!" It was Mordin this time who called out to Shepard, agitation clear in his voice. "Its armed!"

Shepard looked out of the window at the hulking figure, with its glowing faceplate and industrial drill it was a terrifying sight, but what concerned the Commander most was the large weapon that looked like a plumber's nightmare. The weapon that happened to be pointing at the glass window separating them.

"Alright guys, let's just start backing away... nice and slowly." As trio had begun to back away the Diver continued to watch them through the window, with its weapon forgotten it was seemingly curious about who was wondering the halls. The squad kept their guns pointed at the hulking figure - though fingers were off triggers, no one wanted to find themselves suddenly swimming at this depth. "Garrus you're on point, we get through the bulkhead, we seal it down and hopefully we get to avoid swimming today." They had almost reached the next room and subsequent bulkhead when the Diver lost interest in them, pointed the now designated 'Plumbers Nightmare' at the window frame and pulled the trigger. "THUNK."

"MOVE! Now!" Shepard shouted expecting the window to cave in the moment it was fired upon. The trio had begun to run the moment they heard the 'THUNK' of the weapon going off, needing no more motivation than the expected wall of water no doubt to be following them soon. They raced down the corridor to the bulkhead whilst maintaining their formation, Garrus in front, ready to take down any hostiles in the way of their exit, Mordin next ready to provide support and Shepard bringing up the rear, they were 10ft from the bulkhead when they heard the second "THUNK" and the bulkhead was closing when they heard the third.

"Mordin! Will that door hold?" Shepard panted the words out, the distance they had run wasn't far but the threat of death by 'crushed with water pressure' wasn't pleasant, they had definitely broken several running records to get to safety.

"Checking now." Mordin began running scans on the bulkhead doing what he could to reinforce it using Omni-gel while Garrus checked on the Diver through the window next to the bulkhead, so Shepard began to survey and secure the room they had run into.

The room they had run into didn't have power unlike the last one, though thankfully the bulkhead appeared to still be getting power from somewhere. Shepard activated his suit lights and observed the room they were in, it had practically been stripped bare, metal panelling was missing from the walls in various places, showing off busted pipes and bare wires, the décor that must been removed at some point too as it was evident that some pictures had hung from the walls at some point, though now all that was left were slightly cleaner squares dotted around the intact sections of the wall. thought what stuck out from all of this was the body in the corner of the room furthest from them, stood against the wall, skeletal fingers still wrapped around the remains of a briefcase handle, the briefcase itself long gone. The only reason the corpse stood was evident when Shepard noticed the 2ft long spear sticking out of its chest.

"Shepard. Come and look at this guy..." Garrus motioned Shepard over, his eyes still watching the Diver who was now leaving, his work apparently finished. "Take a look at him Shepard, he didn't damage the glass and now he's just walking off... like nothing happened, what was the point of that? There was no military gain in what he just did, I'd understand it if he flooded the tunnel to kill us or even waited until the bulkhead had closed before flooding it, that would have cut off our escape, but... but he just walked off, we still have an exit and we're alive. It makes no sense." The frustration was evident in Garrus's voice, they had been forced out of the corridor but then been given the freedom to return at any time, it didn't make sense to Shepard either.

Mordin on the other hand had an idea about the incident. "Shepard, the corridor hasn't flooded, I suspect I know why the 'Diver' left. Need to check corridor to be sure."

"Alright, Garrus stay here, I want you ready to slam this bulkhead closed if we come through it in a hurry. We'll be right back." Shepard and Mordin began to scan the length of the corridor, until they came to where the 'Diver' had fired upon the glass frame. "Anything of interest Mordin?"

"Yes! Several new theories about city, about Rapture! See here?" Mordin motioned to several shiny new metal rivets in the frame of the window. "This was the point where water was leaking inside. The 'Diver' repaired the frame, making it water tight again, it's the 'Diver' that's keeping this city standing. Must be several hundred of them, no way one can maintain city, think of them like the Citadels keepers, always repairing damage and keeping systems operational." Mordin stopped speaking suddenly freezing up as new thoughts and theories spawned in his mind. "However, implications not good, "Diver" is human, those who abandoned luggage perhaps, maybe... though more humans would be required, possibly needed a slave work force to maintain city? No, not efficient, plus hard to control whilst in deep sea dive suit... perhaps... alien research base? Maybe, though they couldn't have brought enough materials with them, mined from ocean floor? Plausible, however water pollution would be immense, far higher than now, perhaps indoctrinated subjects to buy from surface ..." Mordin began to mumble, his mind racing ahead faster than his words could follow... so Shepard left him to it, the corridor was safe, and no one was in the room where the submersible docked, unless someone got past Shepard and Garrus then Mordin was free to let his mind roam around the various ideas and theories he had. He re-joined Garrus, updated him on the situation and they decided to search what little was left of the room they had found themselves in...

"Garrus give me a hand with the corpse, let's see what we can find out about it." Shepard motioned Garrus over and they managed to pull the body off the spear leaving it embedded in the wall still and laid the body on the floor. "The spear isn't coming out anytime soon is it?" Shepard questioned himself as he gave the spear an experimental tug. "SNAP." An 'experimental tug' that snapped the spear in half, leaving the other half still embedded in the wall.

"You know Shepard your starting to do that quite a bit, maybe lay of the protein shakes and work outs for a while yeah?" Joked Garrus as he began rifling through the pockets on the body. _Who knows._ Thought Garrus _Maybe someone left something behind, whoever killed this guy seemed more interested in the briefcase he once held... ah ha!_ Garrus triumphantly held up his spoils, an audio diary. "Shepard! I found something!"

Shepard dropped the remains of the spear and turned his attention to the audio diary Garrus had found, it... looked like it had seen better days... the casing was cracked in a dozen places, several buttons were missing and the recording media inside the case had snapped, in short... it was junk, completely unusable and unrepairable... unless you had an Omni-tool that is.

"Let's see what secrets you hide." Shepard murmured as he ran his Omni-tool scanner over the devise, there was nothing he could find, though Mordin might have more luck. "Mordin!" He called, the scientist would want to hear whatever was on this tape and would probably be able to get more information out of it than he could anyway.

"Here Shepard, what have you found? An audio recording device? Primitive technology again, nothing new, everything appears to be 200 years or older, recording media is beyond repair however..." Mordin began scanning the audio diary, his Omni-tool was personally calibrated for more scientific endeavours and could pick up far greater amounts of information than either Shepard or Garrus's. With the scan complete the audio diary recording began to play.

"It seems the old man was right about this place! It's really here! So, I suppose I should record this properly shouldn't I really? Maybe they'll make a movie one day... the grand explorer they'll call me... HA! Anyway, the names Jones and that's all you need to know about me! Now I followed what the old bugger said, and I found the Bathysphere right where he said it would be. Under the light house he said, Ha I thought the old man was mad, almost wet myself when the glass cracked but now that I'm here I can make a fortune! All I have to do is find a bit of Adam, one of those plasmid things and bang buck I'm rich! Just avoid the Big Daddies with their glowing faceplate, don't approach the Little Sisters and hope to god I don't meet a damn splicer! I'm dead if that happens but with a bit of luck I'll..."

"I'll what?" A new female voice was picked up by the audio diary, Shepard could already see what was about to happen in his mind's eye.

"SHIT! I... I meant nothing by what I said! Splicers are great in my books! Y-yup! Right at the top! Love em I do!

"Oh, you do, do you? Well then turn around and look me in the eyes and say it!" The females voice had anger in it... a lot of it.

"O-Oh god, y-your face? What happened to you?"

"Something that you won't get the chance to understand." "THUD"

"...ow...hel...p "

"Let's see what you have in your little briefcase then... damn it... let go! Fine I don't need the handle... though for a dead man you have a surprisingly good grip, like my lover you know... he's... he's gone now... just like you I'm afraid... couldn't stand what I had become... had to stop him becoming like this too... ah well... oh? Why... it's an audio dairy? Well I'll just leave you right here, I'm sure whoever finds you will be truly fascinated by our most wonderful city... though its dying now you know? It rains in rapture... oh how I wish to see the sun again... to feel it's heat... they won't except me up there now anyway... not looking like this... in that case then, let this be a warning to whoever finds this recording, Rapture is a dying city... leave while you still can... hum? I'm oddly talkative today, aren't I? Oh yes, the briefcase ha-ha... I'd lose my head if it wasn't on straight...hum ...hum...huh...hum..."

The humming sounds continued for several minutes before fading to silence, just like the silence that had fallen on the trio that had been listening to the recording. They looked at each other... stunned by what they had heard and by its implications to the mission.

"Mordin, keep a record of that for the mission report, it will... put things in prospective for Admiral Hackett... and the Illusive man."

Mordin simply nodded and input new commands into his Omni-tool, ensuring it was backed up and encrypted in several locations, always good to be safe with all information after all.

"Alright, from here on I want everyone to be mapping their surroundings and plotting our route through this place, it's a big city and none of us want to get lost on the way back, especially if that... Bathysphere? is our only way out." The duo nodded, this wasn't a city any of them wanted to stay in, let alone become a permanent resident of. "Ok, recap. We seem to have 'Splicers', 'Big Daddies' and "Little Sister's' to worry about while we're down here, our encounter with the Diver? He seems to be one of those Big Daddies the audio diary mentioned so we know what they look like. All that's left is the 'Splicers' and the 'Little Sisters', Mordin what's your take on them?"

Mordin listened to the audio clip once more before he answered, humming all the while as he analysed the information in the audio clip. "Interesting, the name Splicers likely an indication of what they have become, to splice indicates gene therapy of some description and plural in the name indicates more than a few select individuals are known by this term, more likely several hundred or thousand individuals. Also, notice the casualness of how "Jones" mentioned the name indicates it is a commonly used name, at least in rapture, possibly accepted part of life here, his voice also contained fear once he saw her face, possible disfigurement from uncontrolled 'Splicing'? However uncontrolled splicing incredibly dangerous to the body, growing an extra heart would be the least of problems caused by gene splicing. Certain to be mental effects in patient too may indicate why 'Splicer' act as she did, however biggest point!" Mordin paused to make his next point even more important. "Technology not available during estimated timeframe of audio recording, the recording media is over 200 years old, technology wasn't available, but also humanity had only just discovered DNA. Not enough time to unravel it. Something must have been found to accelerate the scientific understanding of DNA." Mordin paused to take a breath, he had become breathless in his excitement, he really did love genetics.

Shepard nodded at the Salarian scientist who was taking a breather, he paused as he considered the implication of what Mordin had said. "You said uncontrolled splicing, could it make them dangerous?"

Mordin considered the matter then nodded and shook his head. "Yes and no, gene therapy like this could make a person mentally unstable, prone to emotional instability, mood swings, suicidal tendencies or even casual disregard for life. Yes, they could be dangerous, however gene splicing uncontrollably would lead to heavily damaged genes, likely causing sterility and infertility, after 200 years?" He paused again, his mood low as he considered the implications. "Unlikely to be any survivors, if they didn't kill one another then death by old age." Mordin went silent.

Shepard just nodded, _it might be callous but that's one less threat to be weary of._ "Garrus? What do you think?"

Garrus motioned to the previously leaking window frame beyond the bulkhead. "That tool the Big Daddy used to repair the window frame, it can work under the immense water pressure outside, if it was used in city without having to operate under that much pressure it could probably be used as a projectile, very powerful one, but you notice it used rivets to seal the frame instead of wielding it? Could be a bit of a problem in a fight, rivets have a great deal more mass than standard block shavings fired by our standard weapons, they'll wear away at our shields a damn site faster. Could overwhelm shields rapidly or even bypass them if they fired at a low enough velocity. What worries me more however is the suit he was wearing, must be incredibly tough to withstand the water pressure outside." Mordin nodded at his remark and began running calculations on his Omni-tool.

"Current depth is estimated 2000m, run calculations and external water pressure would be equivalent to... 200 times earth's atmosphere..." Again, silence fell on the trio, that figure was more than three times that of the Volus home world 'Irene'. Mordin cleared his throat. "If theory about gene modification is true, may allow Big Daddies operate in high pressure without issues, Krogan can with stand incredibly high environmental pressures as can the Volus, correct gene therapy could allow Big Daddies to be resistant to high pressure environments, would make them extremely durable. Must exercise caution if a confrontation is unavoidable..." The tension in the room was steadily rising, too many unknowns and a single slip could spell the end for them.

Shepard shook his head, dismayed at what they had found. "This day keeps getting better than ever..." He muttered, their problems increasing rapidly, they had only been inside the city for an hour and already they were woefully unprepared for the possible threats in the city. _Still,_ He thought, _we can prepare from here on at least._ He was about to suggest they get moving when he caught Garrus smiling. "Garrus?"

Garrus began chuckling to himself before finally bursting out into full blown laughter, confusing both Shepard and Mordin. "You said it yourself Shepard." he gasped between bellows of laughter. "You... you said it yourself 'What could possibly go wrong', you had to say it!" Shepard finally realised what the Turian was laughing at and it wasn't long before he was laughing too. Mordin smiled as he too realised the absurdness of what was going on, a life or death situation with countless unknowns and no guarantee of success, sounds like a regular mission. The tension that had been slowly building vanished as if it hadn't been there, it took a few minutes for Garrus and Shepard to calm down and stop laughing and by the end of it they were supporting one another to prevent either of them collapsing.

"Err Normandy to Shore pa... you know they're not even at shore, can we call them underwater party or something? It makes more sense you know? Ah right! Normandy to underwater party... you know forget it, Shepard you ok down there? Your bio-readings keep jumping around, you're not breathing fumes down there are you?

"Normandy this is Shepard... we're ... we're ok down here, just found something funny. Alright... let me get my breath back." Shepard and Garrus huffed a few times before finally breathing steady again. "Alright here's the new plan, we head straight for the signal, we collect any information we find, shoot anything trying to kill us find the distress beacon or systems and get back to the Normandy. Sound good?" Garrus and Mordin nodded. "Alright let's get moving."

Alright guys this is it for this chapter! Sorry it took so long for it to come out! I got distracted and it took a hell of a lot longer to write this than I anticipated... so I'm thinking of monthly releases, that gives me time to write good sized chapters full of the good stuff...words! Anyway, it'll be another month before you hear from me again, so until then I bid you good day! And hopefully see you soon! Also, one last this before I do go, this might be a really long series or a really short one, I haven't planned any of this and while I do have milestones as such (kind of like plot stones but yeah) so there will be some structure to this, and again depending on how this goes it might go in a completely different direction to the original series... I don't know yet... we'll find out in a few months! See you then!


	3. Chapter 3 Exploration!

All right guys chapter 3 is here! It's finally out! Sorry it took so long to get this to you, it's been a busy few weeks, new job role... lots more hours... less time for drinks... but chapter 3 is ready so yaaaaaaay!

Anyway, it might be even longer before the next chapter comes out though... Sorry! I need to start planning how this story is going to go, otherwise there won't be a plot direction, then it'll suck... no one wants that... So, here's chapter 3! Enjoy!

So once again with the blanket statement that I own nothing and have nothing to do with Bioware the creators of Mass Effect or Irrational the creators of Bioshock, with nothing left to mention I say onwards with the story once more!

"So... what is it?" Garrus gestured towards a dark alcove.

"Looks like a vending machine." Shepard answered, eyes still fixed on what was before them.

"Ok but what are those?" Again Garrus gestured towards the alcove, this time pointing at two large objects, each to the left and right of the "Vending machine".

Shepard looked at them. "They...they look like mascots..."

"I don't like them."

"No?" Shepard turned to look at Garrus, who still seemed fixated on the vending machine.

Garrus flexed his mandibles. "They seem... off."

"They are a little creepy..." Shepard turned back to the vending machine and the mascots that stood either side of it.

"They are really creepy Shepard." They both watched as Mordin walked back and forth in front of it, examining and scanning the vending machine from multiple angles.

"Mordin... any chance you can you get this thing working?"

"Should be able to, need to fabricate new parts, possibly needs lubricant too, appears to be purely mechanical though there is a basic computer inside, no ports inside to hack in though... basic but effective. Interesting though, Gatherer's Garden? What does it contain? Appears to be a liquid container... a drinks machine? No, too much focus on it with mascots, perhaps...?" Mordin fell silent in contemplation, he was the first to notice the Gatherer's Garden vending machine, having been adamant on scanning almost anything he laid his eyes on, from the thickness of the glass holding back the water outside to the plant life this far underwater.

They had managed to ascend through almost all the floors of the building when Mordin had spotted something interesting on the next floor. The main staircase they had just climbed had led them to the last two floors of the building, a massive space taking up the entire two floors - the last floor made up as a veranda with several balconies looking down on them. Most of the floor seemed to have been some sort of shopping centre at some point in the past but now all that remained was broken glass and empty displays. Though poorly lit with most of the electrically powered lights off, the room was partially illuminated by a single skylight in the roof of the building, lighting both floors with the odd green glow of the ocean. This is what had originally hidden the vending machine, the combination of poor lighting and an overhanging balcony had cast the alcove into darkness and hid the vending machine out of sight. At least until Mordin had found it.

Though their first steps into Rapture had been interesting to say the least they had yet to see anything else that was of interest, just more of the same, rooms that had been stripped of all their worth, odd compared to the first room they had arrived in, especially considering the amount of luggage that they had found discarded when they arrived.

The vending machine in question was unusual but it had character unlike the ones on the Citadel, they were uniform in design, all of them made to appeal to as many species as it could serve, normally either solely for Dextro based life forms or Levo based ones. This thing was designed to turn heads and to stand out as much as possible... which it would have had it been powered. It was just a vending machine, which on its own wouldn't have attracted much attention but what made this different was the two mascots standing either side of it, oddly cartoonish in design but obviously designed to look like a little girl in a pink dress, only the "little" aspect of it involved the mascot being four - five foot tall. Each mascot had one hand on their hip and the other on the vending machine with several mushrooms at their feet, it was an incredibly strange sight made worse by the discolouration of the vending machine and the mascots, rendering most them an unusual metal grey with the odd streak of colour here and there.

"How long do you reckon it'll take to get it working Mordin? Not to rush you but we still have to find the distress signal." Shepard was curious, but the mission had to come first, even if it meant missing out on something interesting...

Mordin stopped pacing and began to fabricate parts from Omni-gel immediately. "Shouldn't take long, ten or so minutes to replace parts, can power vender straight from Omni-tool, will change part of mechanism to get contents without cost."

Shepard nodded to Mordin to continue and sent Garrus to scout in the meantime, whatever is likely to come out will probably be as old as the city around them, but it may give them a clue about what the locals expected in a vending machine, if a drink or food popped out (well whatever's left of them pops out) fair enough no harm but if a fuel canister or an ammo pack came out? In isolated colonies vending machines produce what is needed, not what is wanted, with this city as isolated as it was it may function the same.

Before Shepard realised it Mordin had finished both his repairs to the machine as well as his modifications, they should be able to empty it out without too much effort now, all that was left was to turn on the power and see what happened.

"Repairs and alterations complete, ready to active." Mordin held his Omni-tool, ready to turn on the power and find out what was hidden inside the vending machine.

"Alright go ahead, let's see what's inside." Shepard gave the go ahead, Garrus returned from scouting the surrounding rooms in time to see Mordin activate his Omni-tool, powering up the machine and then...nothing happened.

Shepard rapped his knuckles against the vending machine noting how nothing was working. "Mordin did..."

"clink" "MY DADDY IS THE BEST DADDY, HE CAN LIGHT A FI..."

"SHUT IT OFF! SHUT IT OFF!" Shepard shouted to be heard over the sudden booming sound coming from the vending machine, luckily Mordin cut the power as soon as he realised the vending machine was trying to wreck their hearing.

Mordin checked his Omni-tool. "120 decibels, impressive, note, in future wear noise cancelers before activation unknown technology..." Mordin rubbed at his head, trying like Shepard to get the ringing noise to stop.

"...vrmmm...vrm..vrmmm..vrmmmm"

Garrus looked around, hearing an odd noise in the distance, being furthest from the vending machine when it tried to deafen them meant he got the least of it, as a result he still had his hearing and what he heard worried him.

"Possible contacts!" He turned back and realised that neither Shepard or Mordin heard him, they were still suffering from their loss of hearing. "POSSIBLE CONTACTS!" He bellowed at them, this time he got their attention, though they were still disorientated they managed to get to what little cover remained in the room. Ten seconds passed with nothing happening, the noises gradually dying away... only to return a few seconds later gradually getting louder... "...vrmmm...vrmm...vrm..vrm...VRMMMM..."

Suddenly barrelling around the corner into the room were three... drones? Garrus had never seen drones look so old yet still be functional, propellers as opposed to mass effect cores were keeping them afloat and what appeared to be ammo crates had been attached to them, not a single piece of mass effect technology in them and the way they bounced off the walls and each other whilst flying around they appeared to be...drunk. _Drunk synthetics? If Tali was here now she'd be giggling_ Garrus thought, a wry smile began to form on his face, which quickly disappeared when one of the drones started to fire on his cover. They might be drunk drones, but they were dangerous drunk drones. "Leading with a high impact shot!" Concussive round away, _should be a strong enough round to test the shields and possibly the armour,_ Garrus watched the round as it curved from the left and collide with the first drone... the drone subsequently slamming into a wall causing sparks everywhere as propeller span off, coming alarmingly close to trashcan Garrus was huddled behind, _So... no shields and barely any armour... what use are these things?_ Garrus stood up from behind the trashcan and opened fire on the remaining two drones, without any shields or much in the way of armour the mass accelerated rounds pieced straight through them, his assault rifle quickly taking them down. "Hostiles down."

Garrus stood over the drones examining them while Shepard and Mordin approached, though their hearing had recovered during Garrus's display of his marksmanship skills they were still cautious, but also curious of the lack of effectiveness shown by the drones.

"Shepard come look at this, this drone here?" - Garrus pointed to one of the drones - "It has corrosion markings on the firing mechanism, everything is seized up, its full of ammo but it can't fire a single bullet." Garrus pointed out his findings to Shepard and Mordin before moving on to the second drone. "This one is in the best condition out of the three, but it hasn't even got any bullets left, it seems to have spent them trying to poke holes in me." Garrus expressed his disgust at the conditions they were in, even Varren wouldn't have any problems against them they were in that bad a condition. "And this last drone here? I'm surprised it got here, it has no ammo, it has the same problems as the first drone with a faulty firing mechanism but most importantly its propeller has massive amounts of corrosion, it could have snapped off at any time, well it did in the end. These things haven't been maintained in years, if ever."

Mordin crouched down beside one of the drones, his scanner dancing waves of light over it, "Look here, receiver built in, possibly programmed to respond to unauthorised alteration or hacking of the vending machine, must take more precautions next time, good lesson to learn, never underestimate primitive technology."

"Well at least we know they aren't much in the way of a threat, just be weary of any other automated systems, if these survived all this time who knows what else did. Mordin, I heard the vending machine drop something before it tried to deafen us." Shepard looked back to the vending machine, hidden away in its alcove. "Let's find out what it dropped."

They approached the now silent vending and low and behold, it had dropped something... a glass bottle to be exact, that was filled with what appeared to be... blood?

As soon as Mordin saw the contents his face lit up like it was Christmas (so did his Omni-tool) and he immediately began to scan the contents of the glass bottle.

"Interesting, biological substance, not blood however, appears to be gene related though can detect various DNA strands, possibly substance used to cause genetic modifications in subjects, too many unknown compounds to list, perfectly preserved, glass bottle in remarkably good condition. Puzzling though." Mordin set the bottle back in its receptacle and proceeded to pace back and forth as he considered the implications of a publicly available gene modification, finally concluding that this was likely what caused people to become 'splicers'.

"So Mordin, what do we have here?" Shepard picked up the bottle and examined the contents for himself, the bottle design was unique to say the least, four metal bands vertically wrapped the bottle leading from the top to the bottom and what appeared to be a face was engraved onto the cap of the bottle, it made the bottle... imposing.

"Appears to be genetic modification in a bottle, though what it'll change in the user is unknown at this time, however readings indicate human DNA, ah!" Mordin's eyes opened wide once he saw what was on the bottom of the bottle. "Instructions on the bottom."

"Really?" Shepard turn the bottle upside down to be greeted with a small list of instructions.

Ryan Industries

Presents Our Newest Plasmid!

Sonic Boom!

" _When just yelling GET BACK isn't working,_

 _it's nice to have some repelling force to back up your request._

 _Sonic Boom - when push comes to shove._ "

Simply inject with a syringe and your

ready to go!

Ryan Industries

For a better future!

Check out our other popular Plasmids!

Electro Bolt! Incinerate! or Even the popular

Insect swarm!

Buy now!

(Warning: Ryan Industries are not responsible for any damages

caused to property or industries effected by 'Sonic Boom'

Warning: Use of 'Sonic boom' can cause: Memory loss, Splits personalities,

Horrific flatulence and significant property damage)

"This reads like a really bad commercial, so this is the Plasmid that our guy on the audio diary was talking about? It sounds like a scam, think anyone bought it?" Garrus was amused by the impossibility of it, if a genetic modification could let someone make a sonic boom whenever they want to would be the most wanted gene treatment in Turian space - well... anywhere actually, that sort of gene modification would allow anyone to go unarmed one on one against a Krogan... well not a Battlemaster but going one on one with a Krogan is impressive enough.

Mordin shook his head. "Couldn't be a scam, vending machine itself proves popularity, enough demand to implement a vending machine indicates constant sales, also indicates other products, possibly more plasmids, must keep watch for others."

Shepard agreed, "Mordin's right, this thing isn't adverting a plasmid, it looks like it's selling a brand. Either way we need to keep look out for more of these... plasmids. Let's keep moving and see what we find. We have a whole city to search and considering how isolated this place is they probably had to manufacture it in a lab in the city somewhere. I'm sure you'd love to see their lab Mordin."

As soon as the Salarian realised the possibility of a lab to raid he perked up. "Yes! Lab would have records, test samples, though most would be degraded beyond use now but records would provide vital look into plasmid development." He might be a little too excited of the prospect of finding a lab...

"Alright let's start moving on." Shepard activated his Omni-tool and searched for the distress signal. "Ok according to this the signal is originating somewhere north of us." The three of them looked out the window

"Yes, also based on signal strength objective no more than two-three miles away, however signal strength could also be compromised due to nature of the city." Shepard looked puzzled until Mordin explained it to him. "City is underwater and filled with glass and steel structures, likely compromise the strength of the signal." He paused in thought. "It's also what's causing EDI to have problems locating us, too much interference."

"Either way we still have a lot of ground to cover, we'll explore the next two levels and see if we can find any of those tunnels that linked to the other buildings and gradually move north through the city." Shepard passed the Plasmid to Mordin. "Catalogue the Plasmid and send the information to EDI, EDI you still listening?"

"Yes Commander, do you have a request?" EDI asked, her voice emanating from Shepard's Omni-tool.

"Start categorising the information Mordin sends you on the plasmid. Mordin, I want you working on this as soon as we're back on the Normandy, I want to find out just how dangerous this thing is as soon as possible... to both the user and other people." said Shepard.

Mordin and EDI agreed. Mordin began sending all the data from his Omni-tool to EDI via the drone set up in the Bathysphere. "Yes commander, automated data categorisation in progress... 0.2% complete, warning data packet exceeds bandwidth parameters, expected download time...6 hours. Signing you out Commander."

"... how much data did you get off the plasmid Mordin?" Sheppard looked at the Salarian doctor in surprise.

Mordin smiled and held up his Omni-tool. "Still have clearance with STG, managed to pull a few favours to get an Omni-tool upgrade... a big upgrade."

Shepard nodded and proceeded to contact his CO. "Alright also, Miranda?"

"Yes Commander?" Miranda's voice sounded bored, she had been monitoring the mission from the get go after all, anyone would be bored after monitoring nothing but video feeds for almost 5 hours.

"Contact the Illusive Man and see if you can get a hold of any genetics research Cerberus has been doing or anything that could speed up Mordin's research, I'm sure the Illusive Man ignores more than a few galactic laws on genetic modification anyway. I want to find out if this Plasmid is real and safe to use, if so then the Collectors will be in for a hell of a surprise when we meet."

"I have a few people I can speak to, I'll see what I can find Commander," Her voice perked up as she now had something to do other than watching video feeds all day.

"Alright, let's get a move on then shall we? Also, next time, we unplug all speakers from any vending machine we find... I like my ears not ringing." said Shepard.

"You know I think I'm starting to get the hang of this you know, the constant threat of death by drowning is starting to wear off. I still don't want to be down here for any longer than we need to be." said Garrus, having acclimatised as such to the city.

"Death by drowning was never a strong possibility, more likely crushed by water pressure before drowning becomes a problem." Mordin stated dismissively, they happened to be traveling through a glass domed tunnel at the time, not helping Garrus's phobia of deep water in anyway.

The distress signal had strengthened considerably since their first steps into Rapture, so far, they had had to divert through several other buildings and tunnels due to the disrepair of the city. Several of the tunnels had either collapsed outright or looked to be in too bad a condition to risk using - a sentiment that was re-enforced when a tunnel collapsed before them - they had been lucky that the bulkhead door slammed into place stopping the rapidly approaching water, though they had decided to move on swiftly to another tunnel when they realised that the bulkhead was gradually beginning to bulge from the massive water pressure that had been building up behind it.

"It still wouldn't have been a pleasant experience, but our shields would have blocked some of the pressure surely?" Asked Shepard as he checked the structural integrity of the tunnel they were using for the third time, the fact that a tunnel had collapsed just as they were about to use it really didn't help his nerves, Omega was certainly safer...

"Yes and no, sheer quantity of water and pressure would overload shield too fast for them to make a useful difference, however shields would reduce initial impact of water by approximately 5.353%." Mordin shrugged as he ran some numbers off his Omni-tool, one mistake could easily cost them their lives. Though Mordin had to admit that he was impressed by the structural integrity of the city, even with the Big Daddy's repairing the city it would have collapsed tens of years ago had the city not been built properly.

"So, our shields are next to useless here... great... well it's not as if things could get any worse, well you know... aside from being in a city at the bottom of the ocean... that's falling apart..." Garrus was slightly upset with Mordin about his comment on the water pressure, it was something he didn't need reminding about.

"Look." Mordin drew the trio's attention to an object beyond the window, illuminated only by the neon sign of the building opposite stood a building, six floors high and anchored to the sea bed like most of the city it looked completely normal, however what stood out as unusual was the complete lack of lights and the fact that all connecting tunnels were incomplete. No bulkheads leading into the building either, just gaping holes where they were likely supposed to be.

"Unusual, build the shell of a building but not connect it up, possibly built with the idea of expanding the city but plans fell through halfway? No, city is dying... perhaps it wasn't needed anymore... lack of population? But why leave it? Then again... state of repair for the last several buildings have been gradually improving, no evidence of undersea mines and no possible way for resources to be gained from surface... perhaps... would work... plenty of resources if that is the case and would make sense to scavenge from the edge of the city... need more conclusive evidence though...

While Mordin mumbled to himself Garrus and Shepard moved on further down to the end of the tunnel, upon turning the last corner they found something they didn't quite expect to see.

"Mordin!" Shepard called. "You're going to want to see this!"

Mordin was humming happily as he began to catch up to Shepard and Garrus, they had barely scratched the surface of Rapture and with just the Plasmid that they had picked up earlier that day he would be occupied studying it for weeks! As he approached the Commander and Garrus his mind was racing as he considered the implications of the plasmid. - _Augmenting current capabilities in individuals remarkably simple compared to what plasmid offers, increasing muscle mass, correcting genetic flaws in a subject easy however all require one thing, blueprints! -_ Mordin's mind rumbled on. _\- Correct genes normally replicated or altered based upon known genetics in other individuals -_ It was in times like these Mordin's love of biology came into its own. _\- However, plasmid offers new abilities! Abilities that don't already exist in a subject, infinitely more complex, would involve changes to almost entire body, support structure for plasmid, trigger signals to activate, energy requirements alone would... -_

Mordin mind slowly ground to a halt as he finally caught up with what he was seeing in the middle of the corridor next to Shepard and Garrus, lying on the floor between them was the body of a Big Daddy - fully armed. Once again Mordin's Omni-tool lit up like it was Christmas as it began to scan for information.

"Subject appears to have been killed in combat, wounds bare multiple similarities with mass accelerated rounds" Mordin paused as he turned the body over with help from Shepard and Garrus "armour piercing mods were used also." He noted several exit wounds on the back of the body, one round going straight through the spine. "Subject spine was severed during conflict, drag marks on suit indicate he attempted to either escape from combat or attempted to pursue attacker." - Mordin squinted his eyes looking to the end of the tunnel, several drag marks on the ground indicated the direction of travel. They emanated from the next building they had been heading to, a neon sign could be seen above the building 'Fontaine Futuristics'. "

More information came pouring through on Mordin's Omni-tool, alarming the scientist greatly. "Resilience of subject determined... monstrous! Perversion of science! Inhumane!" Mordin ranted on after seeing the results of the scans.

"What is it Mordin?" Shepard was concerned, in the short time he had known the scientist he had come to like him and his fast mind, but he had never seen him this way before.

A few seconds later Mordin calmed down and started to rationalise the information on his Omni-tool. "Perhaps only way? Would significantly improve durability of subject and allow them to move easier in underwater conditions... but inhumane! Horrific..."

Garrus decided to step in, otherwise the doctor would continue to mutter to himself and they'd never get anywhere. "Come on Mordin focus, what did you find?"

Mordin paused for a moment and considered the information that had been presented to him from his Omni-tool scans. "Determined reason for why subjects are capable of working under immense water pressure outside the city, subjects skin and internal organs have been grafted to the insides of the suit. Substantially increases survivability of subject and massively reduces effects of water pressure on the body, reduces organ damage received from pressure, impacts and shockwaves..." Just this statement alone had rendered both Shepard and Garrus mute, but Mordin had more to say on the subject. "Massive alterations have been made to subject's genetics, resulting enhanced bone structure, muscle development, cellular regeneration; though not particularly powerful it significantly increases survivability in subjects... also is what's preserved the body so well." Mordin looked sadly down at the Big Daddy sprawled on the floor. "Though not enough to regrow or heal major organs or in this case, spinal tissue. More concerning however is the scar tissue on subject's wrists and ankles." Mordin paused, waving his Omni-tool over the areas he just mentioned, scanning for more data. "Subject was unwilling, restraint marks and deep scar tissue indicate prisoner was likely experimented on... for several years at least... possibly for development of plasmids. Can detect extreme genetic divergent in subject due to massive genetic modification, however... interesting... subject has something similar to a gene recall. Like jelly fish reverting to a younger stage in its life cycle to escape death, this could actually prevent genetic degradation from going beyond a certain point."

"Hang on - wait a minute can't some of those jelly fish live to be like several thousand years old? Would this make him live longer than an Asari or Krogan?" Asked Shepard as he realised the implications of the Big Daddy's genetics. This was akin to the fountain of youth, if news about this got out humanity would find itself targeted by just about every species out in the galaxy, this could change the status quo in the galaxy massively.

Mordin didn't pause scanning the Big Daddy as answered the Commanders question. "Long lived? Certainly! However human body would still be just as venerable, could still be killed by bullet to head, knife to heart or even illness. However not sure how long this 'genetic recall' could operate for, could be a thousand years, could be ten thousand... but it wouldn't last forever, eventually the body would break down regardless...probably..."

Shepard looked down at the body of the Big Daddy in front of them, even if it was just a thousand years extra life that would put humanity on the same level as Asari, people like the Donovan Hock would kill or pay billions or even trillions of credits if they could get a hold of it, luckily Donovan Hock isn't in a position to buy an extra thousand years of life... or anything really. While Shepard worried about the full impacts this gene therapy could have on humanity and the rest of the galaxy, Mordin piped up with a piece of information that put Shepard's mind at rest.

"However, such gene therapy would have to be tailored to each specific person and would also have to be keyed to an exact genetic age point... it couldn't be an inherited gene either, otherwise childhood in children would be extended from ten years to possibly several hundred." Mordin's Omni-tool continued to buzz and beep as it continued to scan and run scenarios on the Big Daddy. "Though... pointless to consider until we find the genetic substance that makes it possible, if gene modification of this level was attempted with today's gene therapy techniques, complications would appear in subject's genome, process thousands of times more complex than Genophage, one mistake - could cause catastrophic gene replication... outcome... death. Impossible now with our technology, though interested what was found that made this possible."

Shepard decided that it was good enough that it couldn't just be replicated without serious risks, this was not something he wanted falling into the wrong hands.

As Mordin finished scanning the body Garrus began his own examinations of the body... though he mostly focused on examining the weapons and suit/armour the Big Daddy wore.

"This looks like the tool the first Big Daddy used when we first entered the city, see the canister here? Similar to twenty-first century guns, just like the drones we encountered earlier too, uses a clip to hold required ammo or in this case rivets." Garrus proceeded to make a pile of food canisters that used to hold their lunch and dinner halfway down the hallway they had walked through, the grin on his face when he came back to Shepard and Mordin gave them a clue as to what would happen next. "Let's see what this thing can then shall we?" He asked after checking the Rivet gun for damage, he proceeded to aimed down the hall, lined up his shot and squeezed the trigger, firing his first shot. He promptly missed.

"Ah... didn't calibrated the sight properly..." Shepard only rolled his eyes at the comment as Garrus began fiddling with the sight, who knows how long it had been down here, Shepard was amazed that it didn't blow up in Garrus's talons. "There we go, that should work fine now." Garrus re-aimed at the pile of empty food canisters and fired. The resulting "THUD" shattered some of the canisters and blew away several others. "You know this isn't a bad gun, a little heavy and cumbersome... the recoil could use some work on it... plus a larger magazine... maybe some better sights on it... can I keep it?" Garrus looked hopefully at Shepard, clutching the Rivet gun possessively.

Shepard signed. "Only if we find some more, otherwise I'll never hear the end of it from Zaeed and Grunt, you know they like weapons as much as you do."

Garrus just nodded and began checking around for anything else left on the Big Daddy, what he did find was a two-hundred-year-old Revolver, some bullets for said Revolver though now defunct, an industrial drill and several different ammo types for the Rivet gun. Once he was finished cataloguing the few weapons left on the Big Daddy he moved aside so that Shepard could have turn in examining the body, though what interested him most was the dive suit that protected the Big Daddy as much as he was a part of it.

 _-This could provide some useful modifications for our armour-_ He waved his Omni-tool over the body and began scanning the suit, anything that could give them an advantage against the Collectors was worth studying and if they could replicate the effectiveness of the armour without having to graft themselves to it the better. - _You can always learn something from old equipment-_ thought Shepard as his Omni-tool finished its scans, - _even if it's what not to do-._

He stood and gestured to Garrus and Mordin, it was time they moved on and found where the Big Daddy had come from and if possible, find some more guns so Garrus would stop pouting... he would never hear the end of it otherwise...

It had been an unsettling couple of hours since they had found the Big Daddy in front of 'Fontaine Futuristics'... suffice to say all three of them were unsettled about how things had gone down in Rapture. Though incredibly old 'Fontaine Futuristics' had an extremely basic computer system with records on the city and its history, basic maps of the city along with decompression chambers for the Big Daddy's, many of the files however were corrupted, possibly due to a missing connection to 'The Thinker' as many of the responses returned on queries. The information that wasn't corrupted however painted a very unsettling picture of the city they now found themselves in, the history of Rapture it seems was filled with tragedy. Information on Andrew Ryan, Frank Fontaine and the civil war they caused that almost tore the city apart and the 'Doctor' Sofia Lamb that came after... along with the brutal history of the Big Daddy's, the Little Sisters and the Big Sisters... all showing just how dark and twisted the city had become.

Though much of the information would need processing and categorising the brief outlook of the history was bleak to say the least, with the "Adam" infused sea slugs being found on the ocean floor along with their incredible genetic adaptability the entire city had gone into the newest craze... 'Splicing'... though not finding out until much later that the effects soured over time along with the user's mental sanity. But what shocked Shepard, Garrus and Mordin most was the creation of the caretakers of the city the Big Daddies, along with the 'Adam factories' the Little Sisters and their later development as the Big Sisters.

Soon after civil war broke out in the city, Andrew Ryan's forces against Frank Fontaine's or Atlas as he called himself at the time, each fighting to have the city. Once the civil war ended, ultimately leaving both Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine dead at the hands of an unknown individual known as 'Jack'. It left the city in the hands of a Doctor Sofia Lamb (though Mordin had some choice words to say about the 'Doctor'), she who then in turn controlled the city unimpeded for several years until she disappeared along with her daughter and a number of Little Sisters. - _I wonder if that's what happened to Mark Meltzer's daughter? Dragged down here, turned into a Little Sister, bonded to a stranger, neither in control of their lives... -_ As they wandered the halls of Rapture Shepard's mind was buzzing as it processed the information they had found at 'Fontaine Futuristics', he thought about Mark Meltzer and his daughter - one brought helplessly down to Rapture against her will and her father who followed in hopes no doubt of saving her. Lost in thought as he was however it wasn't until Mordin and Garrus grabbed him by the shoulders to stop him did he realise that he almost walked straight into one of Raptures remaining occupants - a Big Daddy.

Shepard's first instinct was to grab his gun and lay down covering fire, luckily however he supressed the instinct and thought back to the records they read at Fontaine Futuristics, Big Daddies were only hostile if either attacked first or protecting a Little Sister, well there was no Little Sister in site and they hadn't attacked him, good start so far. Either way the three of them slowly backed up away from the Big Daddy, the lumbering giant of a man completely ignored them however as he made his way to a ventilation shaft on the other side of the room. Once there he looked around the room basking it in a yellow light while surveyed it to see if there was anyone in the area, he noticed Shepard, Garrus and Mordin at the entrance to the room, he shrugged... they weren't considered a risk it seemed, he raised his hand and "THUD! THUD!", he waited expectantly but nothing emerged from the vent. Distressed, the Big Daddy raised his hand again and slammed it against the vent cover, "THUD! THUD! THUD!", still nothing... a mournful moan escaped the helmet of the Big Daddy in front of them, there was nothing they could do, according to the records all the Little Sisters had vanished after Doctor Sofia Lambs reign ended. Dejected the Big Daddy lumbered back the way he came, the distinct "THUD" of his boots echoed down the corridor as he slowly stomped out of sight.

Mordin's Omni-tool beeped as it finished recording their encounter, he had activated its recording function the moment he, Garrus and Shepard had seen the lumbering giant, however none of them were ready for the overwhelming sense of pity that came over them when they heard its mournful moan.

"That.. that was distressing." Shepard had watched the Big Daddy go on his way, once again ignoring them so long as his wasn't in his way. "Once we're out of here I'll contact Admiral Hackett about getting them out of here, maybe even rehabilitate them, surely we can do something for them."

"Already working on it Commander," Mordin said as he furiously typed away at his Omni-tool, "already theorised several processes that could help repair the damage done to their bodies, may be able to free them of their dive suits, however genetics at this stage would be almost impossible to correct, maybe if original D.N.A. samples available... but if the genetic recall is functioning in subjects then it would overwrite all genetics back to same point... recovery impossible. Also, mental conditioning would be need to be erased in subjects, however two hundred years functioning under brainwashing could be... permanent." Mordin lowered his Omni-tool whilst looking depressed, the outlook for the Big Daddy's was not looking good but freeing them of their dive suits would give them some freedom... if they even wanted it at this stage.

"Keep at it anyway Mordin, Miranda might find something in Cerberuses records that could help. In the meantime, we are approximately..." Shepard paused and checked his Omni-tool, "one building away from the source of the signal if I'm reading this right. If we pick up the pace a bit we can get there in thirty minutes... provided that we don't run into any problems in the tunnel systems, though this building does appear to be in better condition than the rest of the city." Shepard gestured around the room they were in, the distinct lack of mould, damp and dripping water immediately made it obvious that the room was in immaculate condition. The room in question had been designed with the 1960's idea of grandeur, to their right was the tunnel that the Big Daddy took, it also coincidentally lead to the next building and to their left was a grand sweeping stairway leading up to the next floor and surrounding them on several of the walls was balconies allowing anyone to look down on them from the next floor up, it would have looked incredible... had the decoration been in better condition. The drapes that lined several of the walls looked ragged and dusty, the various paintings that covered the walls were damaged, every single one of them requiring some sort of restoration, some were water damaged, others with faded colours and some even contained jagged knife marks. There had been attempts to decorate the room and considering the only occupants of the city were Big Daddy's... they hadn't been able to do a good job.

"Ah Shepard, considered it earlier though now have enough evidence to back up theory, likely Big Daddy's are stripping away materials from building on outskirts of city in order to repair most important structures, no other way of getting access to materials down here. The building that looked empty and incomplete earlier? Likely completely stripped of resources, shell of building left for development in the future perhaps, more information required to confirm."

Garrus and Mordin continued to look around the room, Mordin was running scans while Garrus scouted out the area, expanding the map they had downloaded at 'Fontaine Futuristics', much of the buildings layout had changed, presumably due to the Big Daddy's rebuilding efforts.

"Makes sense Shepard, Turian military use it during strategic retreating manoeuvres, though not used much since the Krogan rebellions, anything that can be used from an unused part of the battlefield will get disassembled and reused elsewhere, economy of resources, extremely useful during when supply lines are down." Garrus's military knowledge had improved significantly during his stay in Omega it seemed.

"So, the city's not so much falling apart so much that its being rebuilt, so in that case the most important buildings get rebuilt first right? Supply areas, generators... still they'd need somewhere to process the materials the strip from other parts of the city, right?" Mordin and Garrus nodded. "Might be an area to visit later... may even be some Rivet guns or Plasmids hanging around." Garrus and Mordin nodded in agreement, now Mordin had a lab to raid and a supply area and Garrus might have some guns to share with the other gun nuts of the Normandy... Shepard shook his head, it was going to take a long time to write the mission report...

Alright with the chapter over a quick request to you guys! I need to know how I'm doing! I'm not a great writer at the best of times so any advice on how to improve would be great! Also, if you spot anything that doesn't make sense just let me know and I'll try and rewrite it to make sense! Anyway, see you all later! Hollowminion out!


	4. Chapter 4 Understanding

Its here! Finally chapter four! So site back and enjoy, also I'm not totally sure with how they chapter played out to le me know what you guys think! So with the blanket statement I own nothing and have nothing to do with Bioware the creators of Mass Effect or Irrational the creators of Bioshock, with nothing left to mention I say onwards and let's get this story moving!

* * *

Chapter Four: Understanding

After their close encounter with a Big Daddy just recently the trio decided to proceed into the next building with a great deal more caution than they had with the rest of the city. Unfortunately unlike the rest of the city this building had been fully repaired and restored along with its defensive systems... which were active.

"Mordin get those bulkhead doors open, Garrus and I will cover you, those drones are in better condition than the ones we shot down earlier. Garrus, you and I will hold them off long enough for Mordin to get the doors open, then you'll go in first - shoot anything that looks hostile then give us covering fire, Mordin you're next, just be ready to shut the doors once I'm through after you, clear? Alright, lets move!"

Garrus and Shepard ducked behind several storage crates next to the bulkhead and began firing back down the tunnel they'd emerged from while Mordin attempted to hack the door into the next building. So far they had discovered that this building actually had active security systems in place and while they were curious about why this building actually had security unlike the rest of the city they decided such a question could wait until after they got into the building without getting attacked by the swarm of drones that had just appeared.

It was those drones that were causing them so many problems at the moment, they must have triggered a hidden alarm because halfway through the tunnel linking them to the next building - the one the distress signal was emanating from - a swarm of the damn things began following them up the tunnel, they had only been in the city for a day so far and already Shepard was wishing he could be back on the Normandy - _cold beer and pizza would be great right about now_ \- he thought as he shot down another drone as it drifted away from the main group and closer to their makeshift barricade, its gun continued to fire its remaining bullets but since it couldn't move and was pointing in the way it came from it ended up helping them by damaging its fellow drones, though it didn't last long as after thirty seconds and two damaged drones later it ran out of bullets, all that could be heard was the "Click Click Click Click..." as the drone tried to fire its depleted ammo supply. As funny as it was the problem the trio now faced was the steadily growing number of drones, their number having started off as a measly seven had increased to sixteen and more drones were still coming.

"Mordin!" Shepard shouted over the sound of gun fire. "How are you doing on the door?"

"Lots of fun Shepard, door lock of unusual design, will take some more time yet, door is likely designed to delay intruders in any case, will try alternative methods." With that Mordin stopped attempting to hack the door and instead proceeded to fire his hand gun at a section of wall just beside the control panel. Reaching into the resulting hole he pulled out several wires and began twisting them together. A few moments later and the door locks disengaged, the doors themselves however didn't open. "Shepard! Doors are unlocked but motor's aren't working, will need to force them open." Mordin grabbed the remains of a propeller and wedged it in between the doors, trying to lever them open.

"Garrus change of plan, give Mordin a hand with the door, I can hold them off for a minute." Garrus simply nodded at Shepard before leaving his position, a shot from his gun snapped a propeller blade off a downed drone and he too began levering the door open along with Mordin.

\- G _etting the door open will only take a few seconds, getting it to close it again afterwards will be another challenge_ \- Garrus thought as he peered through the gap they had made in the door, he couldn't see anything on the other side but that didn't mean that there wasn't anything there. There was always something hiding in dark places... though on the Normandy that's normally Kasumi. - _Just a bit... more... and... through!_ \- "Doors open enough! I'm heading through!" Garrus dived through the door, ignoring the conflict and gunfire, his focus was on what was in this room and besides... Shepard could hold his own easily enough. A quick scan of the room showed no threats, though there was a huge supply of lab equipment and a computer on one side of the room and to the other a corridor leading deeper into the building. _\- Mordin's going to go hyper once he see's the lab equipment -_ "Clear, no threats! Get in here!" Garrus wedged the door open further, let Mordin through and proceeded to lay covering fire to take the pressure off Shepard.

As soon as Shepard saw that he was receiving fire support he ducked down behind the barricade, - _Just let my shields recharge, signal to Garrus to stop firing and I just have to run through the door before my shields drop... easy...-_ "Garrus! On my signal fire a concussive shot then stop firing." Shouted Shepard.

Garrus checked the number of drones still hovering and found that the numbers had increased... despite their best efforts, over thirty of them were now blocking the end of the tunnel, though because of their positioning they couldn't all fire at once. - _Probably our saving grace -_ Thought Garrus as he prepared to cease fire, - _Though whatever you're about to do Shepard do it soon. -_

"Mordin, tech attack now!" A streak of red flew past him and impacted on one of the lead drones, throwing it and several others into disarray "Garrus NOW!" Shepard shouted, Garrus fired his concussive shot stopped firing and ducked into cover before watching to see what exactly the Commander was doing. The Concussive shot disrupted the drones further and Shepard used this chance to dash towards the door. He got hit by a few glancing bullets but managed to get through the door just before his shields dropped, though now they had a different problem on their hands... the doors were still open... and the drones were still trying to kill them.

"Is there any way we can force the doors closed?" Shepard asked as he fired a few rounds at the drones, knocking one out of the air and damaging another. Mordin was scanning the motors on the doors, he quickly found that what he had done to unlock the door had redirected all power away from the motors controlling the doors, the motors would need to be reconnected to a power supply and he could do it from this side of the door.

"Can't power the motors from here Shepard! Would take thirty minutes with proper tools to activate from this side, none of which on hand! Suggest barricading door, filing cabinets on wall would be ideal!" Mordin rushed over to where the lab equipment was set up and began to shift one of the cabinets.

"Garrus give him a hand, I can hold here for longer yet." Shepard once again began laying covering fire, holding the drones back while Garrus and Mordin moved the filing cabinet into position.

"You know Shep, all this grandstanding of yours looks cool and everything but you can't keep doing it... I want to have a go sometime! But nooo, I'm moving filing cabinets to make barricades. I'm a badass too!" Garrus could at least see the humour of the situation even as they moved the filing cabinet into position, though with the way the situation was turning they may have to abandon the barricade and retreat further into the building. At least that's what they thought until they heard the roar.

The trio looked over the barricade to see the situation... only to find something they weren't expecting, at the end of the corridor was a Big Daddy, fully armed with industrial drill in one hand and Rivetgun in the other, though the problem was the light coming from his helmet, which was an enraged burning red. - _Red... that's bad, damn did I shoot it while we were holding back the drones? oh and great its also a Bouncer series Big Daddy... great.-_ Shepard thought as the trio slowly began to back away from the barricade, if the Big Daddy was pissed and the records they found were correct then barricade meant nothing. _\- This could be really bad. -_ Shepard looked down the sights of his assault rifle, if the were going to survive this they would have to start firing now and put an end to the Big Daddy, at least that's what he thought until he saw what the Big Daddy did next.

The Big Daddy roared again and rammed his industrial drill straight through a drone and then began to lay into the other drones, Rivet gun firing wildly as drones began to drop all around him, though it wasn't enough.

"Garrus, Mordin get those doors open, lets give our new friend some covering fire." The trio began firing down the hall, seeking to damage or destroy as many drones as possible, though with four full armed individuals intent on destroying the drones they didn't last long. Before long the thirty drones that had caused Shepard, Garrus and Mordin to take shelter were nothing more than wrecks on the ground. With all the threats gone the Big Daddy's visor returned to a yellow light, Shepard took the initiative to greet their new ally and held out his hand, even if the Big Daddy couldn't talk it may be able to respond in its own way right?

"Hey thanks for the save, we'd be in a bad situation if you hadn't turned up." Shepard's greeting went unanswered as the Big Daddy brushed past him heading to the door, it peered into the hole that Mordin had made while they attempted to get through the door, it then slammed it's hand against the wall seemingly in frustration. It might not have arrived to help them after all.

"Ah Shepard didn't mention this at the time, didn't think it was necessary but seems that the door maybe alarmed for alterations and hacking, likely Big Daddy believes drones caused damage, promptly removed drone problem... best we get into building though before repairs made to door... or it suspects us." Mordin advised, Shepard and Garrus agreed so the trio entered the building only to be followed in by the Big Daddy.

They watched as the Big Daddy ripped the door switch apart and began to fiddle with the contents, twisting various wires together an unraveling others. Mordin had already begun recording what the Big Daddy was doing when it stepped back from the mess it had made of the door switch and raised its hand. A moment later a bolt of lightning shot from the Big Daddy's hand at incredible speed and slammed into the door controls, activating the motors and closing the doors. The Big Daddy raised his hand again and once more a bolt of lightning shot out at the door switch, this time opening the doors. The Big Daddy nodded with satisfaction and walked through the now open doors, his boots thudding against the ground and through the wreckage of the drones he had destroyed earlier. It soon disappeared out of sight, though aside from the massive amounts of wreckage it had left behind it also left the trio stunned in place, astounded by what they had just seen.

Garrus was the first to say something... and it was typically Turian. "Spirits...C-Sec would have a field of a day trying to disarm a Big Daddy if they can throw lightning bolts around."

"Yes, actually matches incident report we found earlier." Mordin began pulling up police incident reports on his Omni-tool. "This one? No... this... not that one either... Ah! Here it is! Police report indicates several officers came across a kidnap incident... several officers were hurt... one officer saw the attacker fire a lightning bolt at several officers... later disproven due to power cables near the bodies... this incident matches what we saw, rather than simply be a tool to help build the city it can be used offensively, must be wary though, could short out shields in similar way to the Arc Projector."

Shepard looked at Mordin in surprise. "The Ark Projector is a heavy weapon... you're saying that that Big Daddy is walking around essentially carrying a heavy weapon at all times? Without needing to carry any ammo... at all?"

Mordin was incredibly excited. "Yes! There are several different plasmids, there was 'Sonic Boom' that we found earlier and several others advertised... we haven't seen 'Incinerate' but it may be similar to the heavy weapon we found on Zorya - the M-451 Firestorm! Also! Documentation we found earlier indicates that while there is a limit to how many plasmids can be active at a time, however the user can store and have several predetermined abilities active instead, similar to having a load out for combat but for plasmids! Still need to find energy source to maintain such energy expenditure, normal dietary requirements insufficient to power such displays of power! Though several documents refer to something called 'Eve', must find formula..." Mordin's hand was a blur at this point as he typed new information into his Omni-tool, theorising what exactly could power such abilities, Rapture it seems was a biologists wet dream.

Shepard checked his Omni-tool, the distress signal was coming from the building but his Omni-tool couldn't get a exact lock on where it was coming from, looks like they'll have to search the old fashioned way...

"Alright this isn't a big building but we still have a lot of ground to cover, Mordin you stay here and go through what's been left behind in those filing cabinets and see if you can pull up anything on the computer system about what this lab was used for." With a quick nod Mordin rushed over to the computer system and began typing away, meanwhile Shepard turned back to Garrus. "The signal is emanating from this building but the Omni-tool can't narrow it down so we need to search this building top to bottom, we start up and work down to the sub levels." Said Shepard.

Garrus nodded. "Makes sense, clear each floor as we go, keeps potential surprises and hostiles to a minimum."

"Right, Mordin keep an eye out here too, if you see anything out the ordinary... what am I saying this is Rapture... if you see anything concerning let us know." Shepard and Garrus turned and began exploring the upper floors of the building.

* * *

The exploration of the rest of the building didn't take long... partly due to the fact that they couldn't access more than five floors including the lab on the first floor, the staircase they had used thus far had stopped at the fifth floor, though it was obvious that the staircase lead further up into the rest of the building but it had been blocked off by a thick metal wall. They could cut through it but nothing they had seen on their way up looked like a distress beacon and with the distress signal getting weaker the higher they traveled it seemed that they had been moving in the wrong direction to start with, what they found on the way up did prove to be very interesting however. The previous three floors they had ascended through had housed nothing more than computer equipment... all connected up with thick cables trailing from room to room.

Garrus looked around at the towering computer units that lined every wall. "This might be primitive by our standards Shepard but back when this was all developed they would have been incredibly advanced, what would they need all this processing power for?"

Shepard looked around and noticed several lines of cable passing through the ceiling and the floor, he pointed them out to Garrus. "Looks like there might be more units on the next floor up too, the entire building might just be one great big computer, though I have no idea what they would need this for..."

Garrus nodded, "Maybe Mordin will know more about it once we get back down to him, he might have found something on the computer systems by now."

"He might," Shepard agreed with his Turian friend, "Before we do though I want to have another check around that apartment area that we passed earlier, it looked unused but if the lab was used downstairs they must have stayed there, whoever they are they may have left personal belongings behind." Shepard shrugged. "Might give us more information on what happened here."

The duo began the relatively short trek back from the fifth floor to the second floor of the building - the apartment complex. It took up the entire floor - eighteen apartments in all, though they were searched thoroughly earlier people can get surprisingly crafty when trying to hide stuff they don't want others knowing about. After searching each of the apartments one by one Garrus and Shepard finally found something that piqued their curiosity, one of the apartments still had power.

Thirty seconds of scanning showed that the most interesting thing in the room was the fact that the power was still on and that several redundant systems had been put in place to ensure that it would stay on, but aside from that nothing else was out of the ordinary...except the dust in the room. The bed had been made but not much else in the room had been cleaned - the fridge included, it was however still running... though judging from the state the food was in it hadn't been emptied in sometime. The food wasn't so much as rotten as it had devolved and turned into some obscure wild life zoo of germ and mould warfare... Shepard made scans of it anyway... Mordin might find it interesting.

"There's nothing here Shepard and looking at the level of dust this place is covered in it hasn't been used in a number of years... either that or whoever owned the room never thought about dusting..." Garrus peered round the room, even with just the two of them in the room it felt cramped and clustered... certainly not somewhere he'd want to spend a lot of time... though considering he worked and slept next to a giant gun in a small room which he re-calibrated every time he could... he wasn't one to talk.

"Whoever was living in this room was probably someone who found the distress signal, probably set up base here as they explored the city," Shepard looked around the apartment one last time, "but you're right... whoever they are they haven't been here in a number of years. Lets head down to Mordin, hopefully he's knows more than we do and judging by the signal strength for the distress signal I'd say there was a sub-level to this building, it should be where the signal is originating from."

By the time they got back down to the lab Mordin had completed his search through the computer systems and suffice to say he was incredibly excited by what he had found.

"Shepard! Found information on lab! Incomplete but more information should be available on next floor down! Main lab further down! Also turns out entire building repurposed! Used to be an apartment complex, housed several hundred people but according to records every floor was replaced for additional processing power for main lab!" Mordin paused to catch his breath, his eyes still gleaming from excitement. "Found out what they need the processing power for! They are using it to calculate the correct gene-sequence for plasmids! Trigger markers in order to activate plasmid, how it'll effect the body what it'll do when active! Incredibly advanced science! Makes Genophage work look like child's play.! Also found information of Gene-tonics! Closer to military genetic modifications that all Alliance solders have! Increased muscle mass, increased bone density, faster reflexes! It's all there! Also would only require moderate adjustments to basic gene-sequence and to marker zones to work on other races! Can't wait to have full data, could change everything! Also, found information on Eve fabrication, can't wait to examine!" Mordin said his piece and hurried back to the terminal, furiously typing on his Omni-tool all the while.

"Think he's excited about something?" Shepard murmured to Garrus as they watched Mordin tap away at the terminal and his Omni-tool.

"I don't know but if he types any faster on that Omni-tool it's going to break..." Garrus just looked as Mordin began attaching cable's from his Omni-tool to the terminal.

"Ten Credits that it either breaks or runs out of memory before we leave Rapture." Said Shepard, placing his bet.

"Twenty Credits it runs out of memory in the main lab... assuming that's where we are going next?" Garrus immediately upped the bet with his own conditions, Salarian tech was great but it surely couldn't hold all the information Mordin had already downloaded...hopefully...

"Yeah, seems like that's where the signal is coming from... also deal!" The two of them walked up to Mordin and began searching around to find some stairs, it was time to take a look at this sub-level.

* * *

It took quite a bit of effort to gain access to the main lab, due to the fact that the entrance was concealed behind a false wall... which in turn had a filing cabinet bolted to it.

Shepard looked to the vigilante for suggestions. "Garrus, scans indicate several weak points in the false but to access them we'll need to remove filing cabinet, any suggestions?"

Garrus looked at the scans Shepard showed him and shook his head. "Don't remove the filing cabinet, Mordin how versatile are your Incinerate tech?"

"Very. Optimised them myself, why?"

"Simple, we set an Incinerate charge to go off between the cabinet and the wall, makes a contained-ish explosive, should rip through the wall easily... at least it did on Omega." Garrus nodded to himself, he was fairly confident it would work.

Two minutes later and safely behind a barricade of filing cabinets that hadn't been bolted to the wall the trio watched the explosion with interest, bets had been passed between the three of them, Shepard had bet that the filing cabinet would come away from the wall but leave the false wall standing, Mordin had bet that the explosion would leave the cabinet still attached to the wall and Garrus bet that the cabinet would get blown off the wall while leaving a nice sized hole in the false wall. Garrus it seemed... came closest.

The filing cabinet had embedded itself in the opposite wall and a gaping hole that might fit a Mako in at a push now stood where the false wall used to be... progress had been made.

What the trio found on the other side however concerned them slightly, a short corridor led to an antiquated elevator that looked like it could fall apart at any time... this would be a great day... if the elevator didn't end killing them... so with high hopes and low expectations they got in and began to descend.

"So Mordin... how much memory do you have left on your Omni-tool?" Garrus asked as the elevator began its descent. "You haven't stopped using it since we arrived."

"Well in hand! Managed to procure additional memory storage while on Citadel, brush with Collectors virus used vast amounts of memory and processing power for cure fabrication, got lucky that time had enough memory on Omni-tool, wont make same mistake again however."

Garrus and Shepard looked at each other, looks like neither of them would be wining this bet, they were about to change the rules of their bet when the elevator shuddered to a stop, guns in hand they proceeded cautiously out the elevator and into the lab.

Once inside the trio noticed that it was different from what they expected, rather than the dank walls and 1960's idea of fashion what they found themselves in was a standard medical lab that had been used by the alliance for years, clean white walls with counters lining each side with enough medical equipment to fix just about anyone up, regardless of their injuries. At least that was Shepard's first impression when he saw the room, to Mordin it was a treasure trove of information, medical equipment on one shelf told one story, the DNA compiler and catalogue archive equipment on another shelf told a different story, but it the computer that caught his attention the most. Garrus however was more interested in what lay beyond the bulkhead door on the other side of the room they found themselves in.

"I don't see anything risky, do either of you two see anything?" Shepard whispered, until they were certain that the room was unoccupied it paid to be cautious.

"I don't see anything Commander but I want to check what's on the other side of that door before I make a judgement call." Garrus whispered back, he too taking the side of caution.

Shepard nodded, "Check it out, Mordin you check out the computer see if there is anything more than what was on the one upstairs, might gain access to more information."

"Yes Commander, though suspect this isn't the main lab, looking at equipment would believe this to be a support lab, basic computer systems here but no way to utilise processing power from the linked hardware on the upper floors." Mordin had his Omni-tool out as he was saying this - sweeping the room for bugs and alarms, unlike the rest of Rapture this room could actually be considered modern, no telling what could have been left behind as security measures.

The trio spread through out the room, Mordin began examining the equipment and piecing together a picture of what it was used for while Garrus checked out the door leading out of the lab, unlike the disguised entrance they had come through this wasn't disguised, it was simply what it was - a huge bulkhead door, though what was on the other side was anyone's guess. Shepard joined Garrus after a quick look around the room, like Garrus the bulkhead had piqued his curiosity quite a bit, -B _est leave the lab equipment to Mordin,-_ He thought as he and Garrus examined the bulkhead.

The bulkhead... Shepard had never seen a more secure or reinforced bulkhead before in his life, until they got it open he wouldn't know for sure how thick it was but his Omni-tool's scans of the bulkhead indicated that it could possibly twice as thick as the other bulkheads found in the city, but none of them had nearly as many locking mechanisms as the one in front of Shepard right now. Whoever built this bulkhead either wanted to keep whatever was inside completely safe or didn't want whatever was inside getting out, both of those possibilities were equally worrying considering the fact they were at the bottom of the ocean... in a dead city that no one actually knew about... that had been filled at some point with hordes of genetically altered citizens who could deal horrific amounts of damage to any number of people by freezing, electrocuting or incinerating them... so it either really valuable... or really dangerous... and considering their mission - probably really, really useful. Of course they had to get through the door first.

"Mordin? Do you think you can get us in?" Shepard gestured to a computer situated to the left of the bulkhead, if anyone could get them in it was Mordin...or Kasumi, but she was still on the Normandy... probably peeking at Jacob...

"Hum? Oh! Easily, new computer, well not new but modern..." Mordin ran his Omni-tool over the computer and was thankful to find it had wireless access. "Just need to access computer network... tut tut - primitive security software... send viral intrusion disguised as a print request... processing... done." "CLUNK."The trio stepped back as various locking bolts and mechanisms began to disengage for the first time in thirty years. An ominous creak began to echoed through the room as hinges of the door squealed in protest as the door inched further and further open.

The room beyond the bulkhead was remarkably empty for such a large area, the same white walls, floors and ceiling of a standard Alliance medical facility but on a much grander scale, the room appeared to be approximately the same size as the Normandy's hanger bay. In one corner of the room was a series of computers, each hooked up to one another with thick cables linking up to the ceiling and up through the elevator shaft, this it seems was where all the processing power was going. Next to the computer systems was a spider like machine, dozens of robotic arms had been attached to what appeared to be some sort of processing station, various empty vials arrayed around it.

On the far side of the room stood a pool of water and the same docking mechanism that secured their Bathysphere earlier that day hung above it - a docking bay assumedly, but what caught the trio's attention most was the still body of a Big Daddy laying on a bed in the centre of the room, surrounded by a variety of medical equipment with cables and tubes plugged into him, portions of his diving suit had been removed to allow access for those tubes and cables, rendering the suit useless. Garrus cautiously approached the table, gun ready in hand he began checking the medical equipment.

"Hey Shepard, Mordin, this guys still alive!" Garrus waved his Omni-tool, picking up basic life signs from the Big Daddy on the bed. Mordin hurried over to confirm for himself.

"Yes, life signs confirmed, medical equipment must be maintaining basic life support, however medical equipment is old, likely over thirty years." Mordin's Omni-tool lit up as he scanned several pieces of equipment. "Yes, over thirty-two years old however power supply units are considerably older... possibly fifty years old at least, much of this equipment however has been modified, all designed to last substantially longer than recommended usage, once back on Normandy will attempt to trace supplier and possibly who purchased it, may give us information as to who would want this particular Big Daddy to stay alive, unusual though, subject is comatose." His Omni-tool lit up as he scanned the Big Daddy on the table. "Subject suffered considerable wounds however they have since healed, should have awakened, judging by equipment used its possible subject has been kept in comatose state to encourage healing... Will check computer system for more information." Mordin began humming as he accessed the computer systems for information on the Big Daddy, looking for anything that would explain the level of care this Big Daddy had received.

In the mean time Garrus and Shepard decided to scout round the room and see what they could find, Garrus started to scan for more false walls while Shepard headed over to the docking bay, if there was another way out it would save them having to walk back to the original bathysphere to get out, no one really wanted to walk for another nine hours just to get back to the other bathysphere and then back up to the Normandy. As he approached the docking bay he saw a pedestal next to the pool of water, other than a single lever there were no other controls.

- _Might be like an elevator, push the button, get a ride... might as well give it a go.-_ With that thought Shepard pulled the lever and... nothing happened. He slumped in disappointment it was going to be a long walk back, however just as he turned his back on the docking bay to see what Garrus had found the bathysphere emerged from the water like a whale clearing its blowhole... water went everywhere... and since it wasn't moving at a 'Lethal speed' his shields didn't do anything to stop it... so Shepard got his shower for the day... a little colder than he'd have liked but refreshing all the same. The docking clamp engaged pinning the Bathysphere in place, a quick look through the porthole showed a familiar devise on the inside wall, Mordin's makeshift drone relay, it was the same Bathysphere they had arrived in, - _Well that's nine hours of walking wasted, still at least we don't have far to go to get home_ -.

On the far side of the room meanwhile Garrus found a false wall, only this didn't have any complicated locking mechanisms and neither was there a filing cabinet blocking the entrance, a slight push and the door swung open to reveal a storage room... a storage room that was complete with flashing beacon and several gun racks and quite a few other goodies lying around. Garrus's mandibles spread apart in a grin only a Turian could make as he immediately began to scan and catalog the guns, from Rivetguns and Spear guns to hand guns and rocket launchers but what got his attention the most was the mini-turrets, pre-programmed to a basic friend or foe tag, easy to deploy, doesn't require a tech expert to operate and can be left in semi-permanent standby mode, ideal for ambushes or covering your back... ideal for sniper protection or for ambush tactics, in other words - perfect. Plus this little haul of guns should be enough for the rest of the gun nuts on the Normandy.

Mordin on the other hand had found some interesting information on Adam and its capabilities, namely the fact that it could 'remember', be it past DNA configurations or even memories of the user, -I _ncredibly useful for interrogations or interviews, could be problematic in wrong hands... Illusive Man would certainly be at the top of that list-_ Mordin mused. -H _owever could be extraordinary useful for development of skills in subject, single injection could allow individual to use weapons or technology they haven't seen before... also would explain genetic recall in Big Daddy earlier, Adam coded to revert to a previous set DNA configuration to avoid genetic degradation! Genius solution!-_ Mordin continued to browse through the computer system, finding more and more information on Adam and its capabilities and eventually stumbled on another subject entirely. One that made him pause.

"Commander... found information you may want to see, maybe pertinent to you." Mordin said.

"What did you found Mordin? Anything interesting?" Shepard asked as he made his way over to his favourite Salarian while still soaking wet, he noticed however that there was something in his chief scientist's voice.

"Yes lots to work with, understand why Big Daddy on life support, attempts were made to return subject to life, similar to what happened to you Shepard, though while subjects body was recovered technology not available at time to complete process and wake up the Big Daddy, something missing... of course easily rectifiable now have notes from your recovery Shepard... other problem. Subjects body was recovered to its present state thanks to a retro virus according to data recovery took ten years... would need to test to see if correct but according to documentation it was originally designed to resurrect dead plant life, however was later reengineered to resurrect dead cells. Co-named 'The Lazarus Vector'."

Shepard froze... He remembered waking up in the Cerberus facility and the project made entirely to bring him back to life, the 'Lazarus Project'... the naming of the project and the coincidental fact that Cerberus had found a distress signal for a city that had remained hidden for two hundred years? That also happened to have a retro-virus perfectly suited to help resurrect the dead? Cerberus has obviously been here before and that meant he was going to have a very interesting chat with the Illusive Man later... either way that was for when they were back on the Normandy, eating pizza.

"Pull as much information from the computer as you can." Shepard nodded to the Bathysphere at the other end of the room. "Your communication relay made it here with the Bathysphere, send everything to the Normandy but keep anything you consider important on your Omni-tool only, if Cerberus has been here before I don't want to give them anything they might have missed." Shepard knew very well that any information sent to the Normandy would inevitably fall into the Illusive Mans hands, at least this way he'd have something the Illusive Man didn't.

"Garrus what did you f... I see you found an armoury..." Shepard turned to find Garrus only to see him struggling under the weight of several guns and explosives... of which he was already loading into the Bathysphere.

"That's not all I found Commander, I also found several racks of Plasmids and Gene-Tonics, at least three different ammunition types for every gun and I found the distress beacon. Its not a distress beacon though." Garrus put down the guns he had found and straightened his back. "It's a homing beacon, Turian's use them for supply drops and emergency supply cashes, supplies remain hidden until they are needed, just send over the broadcast frequency and you can home in on the supply's. Not seen one this powerful before though..." He shrugged and continued to load armaments into the Bathysphere.

Shepard decided to contact the Normandy. "Shore party to Normandy come in."

"We read you Shore party, we thought you'd got lost, communications went fuzzy for a while, what happened?" Joker responded with his usual cheer.

"Oh you know the normal stuff, gun fights with drones, unexpected help, contained explosives and secret labs... oh and hidden doors, that's new." Shepard responded with a smile, Joker had seen it all along with them in the hunt for Saren, of course he was driving the Normandy at the time but he'd seen enough of their suit cams to see what they had dealt with.

"Hidden doors..." Shepard heard muttered on the other end of the call. "I'll just write that one off."

"Write what off? Joker are you running a betting ring again?"

"What?! No no-no-no, just a count down of we come across next... just going after Saren ticked like thirty items off the list, though people keep adding to the list... I think Jacob added meeting a 'Star Child' to the list yesterday." Joker paused for a moment before Shepard heard him shout to someone. "Hey that's not a reference to a marvel movie right? I still haven't watched those!"

"Joker I hate to say this but you need to catch up on your movies, they're a classic." Shepard was almost offended by this, a lot of people had expected the galaxy to be similar to the movies in someway... himself included but they were getting off track.

"Joker can you get Miranda on the line, I need to ask her about some stuff."

"Understood Commander, transferring you to her com line." A small beep was the only notification Shepard got that the com line had transferred.

"Miranda here, how's the mission going Commander?"

"We're just about wrapped up here I think. We've got information, tech and a mystery until we go through the information Mordin getting." Shepard walked over to the Big Daddy laying on the bed, the Big Daddy didn't move in the slightest but Shepard knew he was alive, the quiet hum and the occasional beep from the equipment surrounding him said as much. "We may have a potential new recruit here too, depends on his backstory and what he wants but I don't think we'll know that until we wake him up. How did you do your end?"

Miranda hesitated before answering. "I managed to get the information from the Illusive Man, some of the information was on my own genetics, a lot more from Cerberus's own history of genetic modification and it is extensive. I've already forwarded it on to Mordin's lab, he may be able to make use of it..."

"Miranda? You seemed to hesitate there, you ok?" Shepard was concerned, Miranda never hesitated, in the week that he had known her she had been decisive and sure, whatever she did.

"Yes Commander, it's nothing... but a new recruit you say?"

Shepard frowned, it was an obvious deflection but he could discuss that later, not over the com line. "We have a Big Daddy down here, comatose but Mordin assures me he can wake him up, there's a problem though and you're the best person to ask. The Lazarus Project, did it at any point involve a retro virus to revive dead cells?"

Miranda hesitated again before answering. "Yes Commander, in fact a retro-virus was what allowed us to bring you back in the first place, it wasn't enough to put you back on your feet immediately, that would have taken possibly twenty years, but it was the first step in a long process, why do you ask?"

"Before I answer, one more question, did the Illusive Man supply it or did you create it?"

No hesitation this time. "The Illusive Man developed it, one of his side projects he said. Without it we'd still be gluing you back together Commander, why do you ask?"

Shepard paused before answering before deciding to go full disclosure. "There's a Big Daddy who has been brought back to life as near as we can tell, someone used something called the 'Lazarus Vector' to and I paraphrase from the report 'Resurrect dead cells in the hosts body', sound familiar?"

"...Very Commander, I'll be back in a bit Commander, I'm just going to have a word with my boss about hiding secret side projects based under the ocean from me."

Shepard chuckled after the line went dead, every bit of trouble for the Illusive Man meant a gold star in his book, Shepard walked back to Mordin to see if he had found more information on their mystery Big Daddy.

"Mordin, have you found anything new? Perhaps on our Big Daddy there?"

"Yes surprisingly so, Big Daddy was an alpha type Big Daddy, man in a suit - no grafting of any organs or skin tissues, however sealed in all the same, according to information here goes by the name Delta, now subject Delta has an interesting history, you remember information we found on Dr Lamb earlier? Subject Delta was the first successful bonding of Little Sister and Big Daddy, however Little Sister was Dr lambs own daughter, well if records are correct subject Delta's daughter too. Now Subject Delta was a unwilling test subject for plasmids before getting bonded to Eleanor Lamb, wonder if DNA similarities made it easier to bond two? Maybe just parental desire to protect child? Anyway Dr Lamb was imprisoned for some time, Eleanor was kidnapped, turned into Little Sister, bonded to Subject Delta and then sent out to harvest Adam..." It was at this point Mordin's scientific curiosity slowed down a notch as his face twisted in anger. "Girls were brainwashed into consuming blood from corpses to process Adam, Big Daddy's were sent out with them to protect them." Mordin shook his head in distaste. "Anyway, soon after war Dr Lamb was released from prison, she went after her daughter, in the end she brainwashed Delta into shooting himself in the head to cut the bond between him and Eleanor, the end of subject Delta for a time." Mordin paused, allowing Shepard to ask some much needed questions.

"So mum comes for revenge and collects her daughter at the same time, but why kill Delta? He was as much a victim as Eleanor." Shepard frowned, so much of this did and didn't make sense.

"There's more, ten years later Eleanor has grown up and her mother is attempting to force her to be a so called 'Saviour', Eleanor takes matters into her own hands in order to escape, somehow she controls new Little sisters and makes them collect remains of subject Delta, there is mention of a Vita-Chamber being used to bring him back to life, have files on that, will examine later, however Delta then goes on chase through Rapture to save her, at this point his brainwashing has been undone. Eventually finds her but! 'Dr' Lamb decides to cut the new bond between them by smothering Eleanor, with the bond cut Delta begins to die, Dr Lamb brings Eleanor back to life again using defibrillator leaving just Delta dying, he manages to go on to save her and the Little Sisters, but still died in the process..." Mordin fell into an angry silence, while he loved the biology and genetics studies made in Rapture it's history filled him with anger and disgust.

"Ok but then what's he doing here then?" Shepard asked gesturing to where subject Delta lay.

"Eleanor... after escaping rapture she came back... to try and bring him back once more, only this time it was unsuccessful... that's all the records I can access, the others... appear DNA locked to Delta... requires plasmid and DNA configuration to access... though managed to access file types! Many appear to be audio files, if Delta awakes maybe able to access them later..." Mordin looked back to the computer screen, despite how angry and disgusted he was with Rapture there was a need to know more in him.

Shepard paused for several minutes, digesting everything he had heard and considering what he knew. He turned back to Mordin. "You're sure you can wake him up?" A nod from Mordin finalised his decision. "Alright grab every thing you can off the computer systems, Garrus! I need you to finish loading up what you found in that armoury and give me a hand with the big guy. Mordin, how long can he last if we take him off life support?"

Mordin blinked, one hand rested on his chin while his other hand rested on his hip, his thinking pose. "Patient completely health now, can breath on his own fine, removing life support now would bring him out of effective hibernation, still comatose, would be fine for several hours, once back on ship however would suggest IV drip until fully recovered and awake."

"Alright, well lets get him on the Normandy. I think its high time we got some pizza. Lets move!"

* * *

And that is Chapter four done! Sorry it took so long, I have trouble writing some parts of the story but find it really easy writing others, weird huh? Anyway fear not! Rapture is not finished with yet! The Alliance is going to explore it yet! Though that may be discussed later rather than written... but there will be references about it later, like much later...

Anyway thanks for all the reviews! It really helps to know where it is I'm going wrong and where I'm going right! so thank you guys loads! So yes Delta is going to join the Normandy crew, how that's going to work I'm not sure yet but I'm sure it'll be awesome!

So yeah big sorry for taking so long this time... I'll try and make it up to you guys with chapter five though!

See you guys and girls next time!


	5. Chapter 5 Subject Delta

Ok! So guys here is Chapter 5! It's taken its time but its here! Would you believe me if I said I've had this almost finished around for about 2 weeks?... yeah not good... but any way its ready and waiting, though I do apologise as tis chapter may contain... walls of text in some areas...

Anyway thanks for all the reviews so far! They've been hugely positive and have helped massively! Also to answer a question or two... yes there will be the Ion-laser at some point and there will be mention of those particularly grotesque photos/statues at some point but I'm not sure exactly when... but in any case I hope you enjoy the chapter!

So once again with the blanket statement that I own nothing and have nothing to do with Bioware the creators of Mass Effect or Irrational the creators of Bioshock, with nothing left to mention I say onwards with the story once more!

* * *

Chapter 5 Subject Delta

"So Shepard, I saw your mission report but I want to hear it from you, how did the mission go?" The Illusive Man just sat in his chair, cigar in one hand and a drink resting in the other, at this stage Shepard wasn't sure he was staring at The Illusive Man or some carefully designed interactive 'Avina' terminal made to make him believe he was talking to the Illusive Man, -S _urely he can't spend everyday just sitting in the chair._ Shepard thought as he stared at The Illusive Man.

"Shepard?"

Shepard mentally shook himself, questions like that could be considered later... with some of the pizza that was being ordered and perhaps a beer... or at least coffee, he still had other mission reports to write.

"The mission... the mission into Rapture was unexpectedly interesting... it came with some startling revelations too." Shepard paused as he considered what to say next. "How long have you known it was there?"

The Illusive Man drew a deep breath on the cigar he held before slowly blowing it out, not that it mattered Shepard thought _-The QEC doesn't even show smoke, he could be blowing smoke rings in front of me and I wouldn't realise...-_ Shepard shook his head, definitely something to consider later...

The Illusive Man paused in thought, as if contemplating on whether or not to tell him, he took his last drag on the cigar before putting out the remains.

"Cerberus came across Rapture almost twenty-five years ago - not long after we started, we had been chasing history, trying to find anything that could give us an edge or information on what was out there. If aliens really did exist then maybe they had found us before... so we went looking, we took a fresh look at the pyramids of Egypt, China's great wall and thousands of sculptures from thousands of religions... nothing we could chase or follow. Until I received a news article about a missing person, you may have heard of him from your own investigations of Rapture 'Mark Meltzer', with all the resources of Cerberus we searched for both Mark Meltzer and the individual who sent us the information in the first place... we never found out who sent us the information, but we did find Mark Meltzer... or at least where he went."

Shepard interrupted as he recognised the name. "We found records on Mark Meltzer during our own search for information on possible kidnappings related to Rapture. We never found out what happened."

The Illusive man pulled another cigar out of a compartment in the arm of his chair and lit it. "I'm not surprised, well you can imagine where that road took us, we found Rapture, though we had fun and games getting inside... I sent three shuttles with six man squads in each down there in the hopes of finding alien technology or a crashed ship, imagine my surprise when video footage instead showed a city spread along the ocean floor... you can imagine my surprise even more when one of the shuttles actually got shot down by several o hundred year old automated defence systems." The Illusive Man wasn't even looking at Shepard at this point, his eyes gazed of into the distance as he recalled what happened.

"The other two shuttles managed to avoid the worst of the incoming fire and managed to breach one of the docking bays... once they were inside they searched for any information they could find and eventually they found a working terminal, from which we got the history of Rapture, various medical breakthroughs... several of which brought you back I might add and some very useful genetic data, it gave our troops the edge in gene therapy over the Alliance for a long time and will continue to do so for a number of years to come... of course that was when the 'Care Takers' of Rapture decided that the squads had out stayed their rather destructive welcome..."

The Illusive Man paused again in his seat before taking a drag on his newly lit cigar. "Two men managed to escape Rapture Shepard, two men out of eighteen. Cerberus was just starting to grow at that stage and the whole incident delayed our growth as an organisation by three years... but the information accelerated our science division's growth by a hundred years, incredibly advanced science. By this point I believed we had all we needed from Rapture, I classified it and hid it from the world as best I could without destroying it, and then imagine my surprise that three days ago one of my teams on Earth actually picked up a beacon signal emanating from the city, a signal we hadn't detected before." He taped the ash off the cigar before resuming with his story. "It was a golden opportunity... and that's where you come into it Commander... thanks to you we managed to find out more information about Rapture than we ever realised, the creation of the Big Daddy's, the experiments... even the Little Sisters, though that disgusts me as much as it disgusted you I'm sure."

"Mordin was furious, almost thought he would destroy the data once he realised what happened to the Big Daddy's... despite his work on the Genophage he's a good man... Salarian. You knew what was down there though, why did you claim it was a distress signal?" Demanded Shepard, one wrong move and they could have died down there without a grave to their name.

"Shepard, if I had told you that you were going to be investigating a secret underwater city that may be filled with incredible dangers that lost me eighteen men you wouldn't have even considered it, unless I made it sound like someone might be alive down there... which there is I might add, our estimate is approximately three thousand Big Daddy's, all of which required to maintain the city."

Shepard shifted in place, obviously angry. "So you set it up like a rescue mission, risk my people without need, just to get me to look into something for you? You must wonder why people have trust issues with you... and what about this 'Lazarus Vector'? Something your people managed to pick up during their last visit?" Shepard asked sarcastically.

"Shepard I did what I believed needed to be done. Yes the Lazarus Vector was instrumental in your recovery, though its contribution was only a small part of your recovery, as a result of my decision to send you there however has left you with a Big Daddy on board that is likely to be a great - if unexpected, asset for the team, if you can get him to work with you that is. I'll send Kelly some information on what she's likely to expect from him psychologically. I'll be in contact with you again once I find more information or if you decide not to wake up the Big Daddy, Cerberus would happily look after him." With a touch of a button The Illusive Man was gone, leaving Shepard alone in the QEC.

* * *

"Leng." After dismissing Shepard The Illusive Man called for his trusted assassin, Kai Leng, to come to his office.

"You called for me sir?" Kai Leng strolled into the office not two minutes later with a sick grin on his face, the only time he got called in here was if he had a mission or an upgrade, he hoped it was the later.

"Shepard's just picked an individual that could cause us problems in future, you can have the cybernetics you've been wanting plus our new gene-therapy, if we ever need to put Delta down you will be our best chance for elimination and body recovery, we lost a lot more than a mere three squads when we went after Rapture, I don't want any problems if this comes and bites us later, if Shepard or Delta go against us or go rogue they are your responsibility, clear?"

It turned out it was both, the smile on his face stretched, it turns out it was both a mission and an upgrade, perfect. "Of course sir. I wont let you down."

"See to it that you don't."

With a causal salute Kai Leng left and made his way to another part of the station - the medical centre, if things turned out the way he hoped it would be a fun little mission too.

* * *

After being dismissed by The Illusive Man Shepard made his way back to his quarters, Joker would alert him once the pizza had arrived but in the mean time he had work to do, primarily reports to write for the Alliance command. As soon as he entered the elevator to go to his quarters however Joker opened a direct line to him.

"Ah Commander? You have Admiral Hackett on the line waiting for you commander, do you want me to direct it to your quarters?"

"On my way now Joker, any news on that pizza yet?" He asked as the elevator did its trade mark crawl to the next level, - _Despite the 'seamless' improvements Cerberus made to the Normandy improving elevator speed wasn't one.-_ He thought as the elevator crept on. _-I understood it's slow so we don't damage fragile equipment moving it between decks but in an emergency this thing is a death trap...-_

Jokers voice came over the com system just as the elevator slowed even more to reach its stop. "Sorry to say but they say it'll be at least an hour or more yet, figures, try ordering pizza for more than sixty people and they say the discount code suddenly 'doesn't work'." Joker's sarcastic impression caused a smile to creep across Shepard's face, as much of a smart-ass Joker is, it was good to have him flying the Normandy.

"Joker." Shepard said disapprovingly, Joker didn't need to know that he was funny, he was a pain to deal with at the best of times.

"Sorry about that Commander, I'll ah... get back to... doing... stuff..."

Shepard left the elevator and entered his quarters, it was time to face the music and hope that Admiral Hackett could convince Alliance Command to start rehabilitating the Big Daddy's, hopefully information on plasmids and more advanced gene-therapies would lean in their favour. One can only hope.

Shepard saluted as his ship collection turned into a vid screen showing Admiral Hackett. "Admiral Hackett sir."

"Commander Shepard. I haven't read or heard a mission report that crazy since my grandkids played solders in my garden during leave, if it was anyone else I'd have asked for a psych examination to be made... what you found down there however Commander will change our knowledge on genetics for years to come, good work."

"Thank you Admiral, I had Garrus change the homing beacon we found down there to broadcast on Alliance frequencies, should make it easier for recovery later but we still don't know why its there, however there was something else I wanted to talk to you about sir."

"Yes I suspected such when I read your report, I didn't understand the medical jargon but Professor Solus's notes were explicit, you want to rehabilitate these... Big Daddy's?"

"Yes sir, the way things are now all they are doing is maintaining that city and if what Mordin said is correct then they have been doing so for two hundred years sir, I can't imagine a life like that, locked away in a city at the bottom of the ocean, spending every waking day doing nothing but rebuilding an empty city, mourning every time they bang on a vent - only to find is empty, that's no life to live sir." Shepard slammed his hand down in frustration, no one deserved to live as slaves, if they could free the Big Daddy's then at least it was a step in the right direction, there was enough slavery with the Batarians running around.

"I know Commander, I've already sent my own report to Alliance Command, but I can't act on behalf of the Alliance alone, that's why we have Alliance Command and until they make a decision I can't do any more then voice my opinion, but... I do know who to voice my opinion to in order to get the ball rolling."

Shepard sighed in relief, at least there was a chance that the Big Daddy's could have a life outside of the slavery they currently had. "If it means something sir, I'm sure two hundred years worth of architectural building experience in extreme conditions would come in handy for the Alliance." Shepard grimaced at his next suggestion. "Along with the ability to use incredibly dangerous plasmids."

Admiral Hackett paused in thought as he considered the suggestions. "I'll do what I can Commander, on the other hand several members of Alliance Command are supporting you now, your show of loyalty to the Alliance even with what Cerberus has done for you have garnered a great deal more trust in you, though many still wish you left Cerberus to come back to the Alliance. Anyway is there anything else I should know Commander? Your report mentioned some information that could only be shared over vid com."

"Yes sir, I ensured that there was a copy of all the data we found while in Rapture, I'll leave it in the place I mentioned to Ambassador Anderson next time I'm there." Shepard said with a smile.

Admiral Hackett straightened up once he heard this. "Thank you Commander, I'll have my people on look out. I'll forward it on to Alliance Command, good work Shepard, Hackett out." Admiral Hackett gave a knowing nod and cut the transmission, _-Another gold star in my books then-_ Shepard thought as he sat in his chair. _-Just have to write the reports... eat pizza once it's here... still have to debrief from the mission, that will be an interesting conversation... and then get some sleep.-_ Shepard yawned, it had been a long day.

* * *

Shepard stood at the conference table, to his left stood miranda, Mordin and Kasumi while on his right stood Garrus, Grunt, Zaeed and Jacob, all had been gathered for mission debrief and a tedious thirty minutes it had been, after all everyone had seen the footage and everyone was interested in all the little details, even if those details involved everything that happened during the fight against the drones... several times over.

"Ok, so before we finish, any questions?" Shepard asked just as he was about to begin the debrief, EDI's hologram popped by the conference table, question or rather request at the ready.

"Commander, Mister Moreau has requested that any members who have anything to add to the 'Scenario Encounter List' to notify him as soon as possible, he said that 'With what's gone on with the last mission in rapture we need to add to the list asap, last time we were only hunting a rogue Spectre we found a Prothean VI, this time we are up against the Collectors, I wouldn't be surprised if we find an actual Prothean at some point.' Message ends Commander." EDI waited for an answer, her avatar still hovering by the conference table.

Shepard shook his head and smiled as he crossed his arms. "Not quite the question I was expecting but what the hell." He looked around at everyone, something like this was a good way to let of some steam and to get the crew to get together outside of the mission. "If any one has any suggestions I don't see any harm in making them, just don't jinx us ok?"

EDI's avatar dulled for a moment before returning to it's normal brightness. "Mister Moreau says 'Sweet', thank you Commander, I'll take this as an opportunity to communicate and integrate more with the crew. Logging you out." Her Avatar Shrunk from view before Shepard could respond, he shrugged, an AI trying to fit in better with the crew could only work in their favour.

"Ok so does anyone else have any mission related questions?" He asked looking around the room, Kasumi shook her head - her questions had been answered already it seemed, lots of grins from the squad mates that he had designated the 'Gun Nut Crew' however, eg. Garrus, Grunt, Zaeed and Jacob... though Jacob did behave a little better than the rest. The more science minded members of the squad, Mordin and Miranda each had their own questions to ask too, but since those would require long and undoubtedly complex answers he opted to ask the Gun Nut Crew what their questions were first.

"Alright, you guys first." He said to them and then watched in stunned silence as the four of them gathered into a huddle, hushed whisperings followed but were loud enough that Shepard make out that they were electing a speaker... or speakers. _-The name Gun Nut Crew really suits them-_ he thought before Jacob and Garrus stepped forward to present their questions, the very move filling Shepard with an sneaky suspicion of their 'questions'.

"Can we set up a-"

"No."

"What about a small one?"

"Not even a small one."

Garrus who had been leading this part of the conversation went back into the huddle along with Jacob for a short discussion before coming back to the conference table.

"What if Grunt stands behind-"

"No." Shepard's final word slammed the nail in the coffin. Garrus slumped, all they wanted was a small firing range in the hanger... it would have been fine if Grunt was behind the target, it wouldn't go through the hull and he'd regen anyway... plus like any confident Krogan (like really... any Krogan) he had volunteered to do it.

Jacob however had a slightly different request/question, one that they would need to consider at some point.

"Can we do controlled weapons tests on and with the guns? We need to know what they can do and if we can implement them as part of our load out." Jacobs argument was valid, any advantage against the Collectors and subsequently the Reapers could be beneficial.

"The guns are over two-hundred years old, do you think they could match up to Mass Effect based weapons that we have now?" Shepard was intrigued, if there was obvious benefits he'd go for it but how could it compare to 'modern' weapons?

"I don't think we'll have any problems there at all sir." Jacob pulled out a canister from his belt, he placed it on the table. "This is one of the alternative ammo types for the Rivetgun, its a trap rivet, fire it at a wall, it sticks in pointing a laser sensor out, if anything passes through the sensor it fires out hitting them, ideal to setup ambushes, holding area's or even just covering your back as it doesn't hit friendlies, against the Collectors it could be extremely useful if we ever go up against overwhelming odds." The next item he pulled out was a small sphere, once set on the table it activated, legs deployed from the bottom of it and clung to the table with magnetic clamps and a small turret popped out the top of it. "This one is a basic turret defence system, uses same friend or foe designation the trap rivets use and again ideal for ambushes, holding area's or covering your back, a number of these weapons are designed to go against big enemies, whittling them down to overpower their armour and armour systems or go up against over whelming numbers. Also, pre-programmable only, no wireless signal to hack in and can be set to self-destruct after is spent its ammo." He crossed his arms as he looked around the room. "They could be very useful in any number of situations Commander."

"Ha." Grunt smiled and slammed his hand on the table. "Just strap them to me and send me to were the fighting's thickest! I'll be a literal walking tank." His laughter filled the room while the rest of the Gun Nut Crew just had smiles on their faces, Shepard had to admit though... it wasn't a bad idea.

"Ok so they look like they could be useful, Grunt I like the attitude but lets shelve that idea for another time." Shepard looked the Gun Nut Crew sternly. "Alright weapon testing is allowed - But!" He looked at them even more sternly... just to put his point across. "Controlled situations only, full gear and shields, no exceptions... and no explosives either." Zaeed and Garrus looked at each other guiltily before looking back to Shepard, a short nod from each of them convinced him that while they had plans involving explosives, they would be conducted off the Normandy, in a possibly safe-ish manner.

"Any other questions from you guys? No? Ok, Mordin what's on your mind?" Shepard elected to answer Mordin's questions first, considering his fascination with the plasmids they found in Rapture, it would be related, plus he already had a good idea about what Miranda wanted to talk about.

"Shepard, already scheduled tests on plasmids in lab, however would recommend no clinical tests, genetic degradation still a problem, had a look at the data but no formula for genetic recall, lots of other valuable data though, not real question though, looked at formula for 'Eve'." Mordin's eyes lit up as soon as he mentioned the stuff. "Studied formula, incredibly complex however easy to manufacture with equipment in lab, wish to progress with clinical trial, if clinical trials are successful suggest adding it to Medi-gel packs for during combat, if data from Rapture is correct then it's what powered plasmids, believe it would significantly improve biotic recovery time during combat, also suspect it would have benefit for standard bodily function, would need to run tests."

Shepard nodded, improved efficiently on the battle field would significantly improve their capabilities against the Collectors when they finally caught up to them. "Alright I can't argue with that, just make sure there isn't any side effects or anything addictive about them before you try and add them to our Medi-gel supplies, talk to Dr Chakwas and get her medical opinion on it too." Mordin nodded and began typing away on his Omni-tool, no doubt already taking notes and forming plans for new experiments. "Just don't forget about researching a preventative for the bugs the Collectors use ok?" Mordin again nodded, though not looking up from the notes he was writing on his Omni-tool.

"Ok, Miranda I take it that its about the Big Daddy?" Shepard watched his XO as she uncrossed her arms and approached the table, though at times he disliked how she always stuck up for Cerberus and their goals she always came through for the group, whether it be in combat or information gathering.

"Yes Commander, though it might better that Kelly steps in on this discussion, as our resident counselor she'll know best about what to expect." She leaned on the table, not the reaction Shepard was expecting however, he had been expecting more resistance from her but Kelly would have a better idea of what they could expect from Subject Delta.

"Good idea, Mordin send all the information you have on Delta's history to Kelly, we'll take a break, get some pizza when it arrives and come back to this in... an hour?" He looked around the room, no objections arose from anyone. "Ok, I'll let her know the situation and we can discuss it then." A ping from Joker notified him pizza had arrived, perfect timing. "Alright debriefs over, everyone go get pizza."

As everyone filtered out of the room following the smell of pizza Shepard motioned to Miranda to stay. He waited until everyone had left before speaking. "Alright earlier you hesitated about something, something that I feel was important, now I listen to my crew and I do what I can to help them out, so, what was it that made you hesitate earlier?" Shepard asked as he crossed his arms, something was bothering her still he could tell by the way she looked away when he brought it up, she sighed before looking back at him.

"I had contacted a number of geneticists working for Cerberus, once they knew who I was they were more than willing to hand over their data, the only problem was about some of the data they sent." She looked around in frustration before finally telling the Commander what they sent. "Look you know how I was genetically engineered? I never gave information on my DNA to Cerberus, it was my problem and that's what I wanted it to remain, but they had copies of it."

This concerned Shepard a great deal, if they were willing to risk loosing their best operative and secretly take blood samples from her then she wasn't as important to Cerberus as he and she had been lead to believe, it begged the question - What else were they willing to do? "Are you sure it's yours? Could it just be similar to your own?"

"I've checked Commander, I've run DNA comparisons on it to confirm it using Mordin's equipment, same enhanced Biotic's, same enhance muscle tissue... same... problems." She looked away in what Shepard first thought was shame, well... until her anger broke through and she slammed her hand into the table, her Biotic's flaring as she did so - leaving a sizable dent in the table.

Shepard looked at the dent she had left in the table, this was either an issue that meant a lot to Miranda or it was an issue that's plagued her for a long time, Shepard took another look at the dent, maybe both.

"What's this mean for you and Cerberus then? If they are willing to risk loosing you just to get a DNA sample then can they be trusted?"

"I don't know Shepard, I've always known that Cerberus had my back, anything I want, people, projects, resources. I was trusted with rebuilding you... anyway we both have work to do and this can wait for another time... perhaps. See you in an hour Commander." She sauntered from the room, leaving Shepard alone with his thoughts.

He shook his head. "Right, need to tell Kelly what's going on."

* * *

One hour later

"Ah Commander, are you sure Delta won't be waking up anytime soon?" Kelly had been concerned about Subject Delta since she read his history from the information Mordin had sent her.

Shepard smiled, Kelly had a quirky personality that always seemed to edge around what she was actually asking, almost like she was asking you to answer more than just the question.

"Delta wont be waking up for a while yet, and definitely not until we've made a decision after this meeting." He turned to look around the room, aside from Mordin who had messaged ahead already everyone was here. "Mordin said he would be a few minutes late, something about setting up a Genome mapping test. In any case, Kelly you've read his history, what do you think we can expect from Delta?"

Kelly looked bewildered for a moment before settling down, questions like these were exactly the reason the Illusive Man put her on the Normandy to answer.

"Subject Delta... where do I begin? Ok so the information Dr Solus had gathered only encompassed his time in Rapture so we have no knowledge of him from before then aside from a few basic facts, from what we do know though he was an explorer, found Rapture whilst deep sea diving, just happened to have gotten lucky... or rather unlucky to find Rapture."

"Luck might not have anything to do with it." Interrupted Zaeed. "Poor sod just so appen's to find a city underwater while diving? No, he knew what was there, whether he went down for his own curiosity or under orders is what begs the question..." Kelly shrugged, so many theories could explain how or why Delta found Rapture, but it was about the man he had become that interested them so she continued her assessment.

"Ok so I have divided subject Delta's psychological profile into several sections or stages, each one highlights particular aspects of his psyche, this will give us a clear look at what to expect from him.

So judging from what I've read he's dangerous, his history is full of violence, to start at the beginning he was a test subject for the testing of Plasmids and Gene-Tonics, anything like that can lead to massive mental instability or according to the information Dr Solus forwarded - genetic instability, either one of those can throw off any attempt of a psychological evaluation but his later history changes that outlook but that's our 'stage one' outlook on his psyche.

Now his history gets a little more complicated, according to the information here Dr Lamb - although how she retained her doctors certificate amazes me - decided that she wanted a child, but since she has no other half she used donated sperm, though I am unsure if that is the correct term when it was taken as it was from Subject Delta whilst he was a prisoner during the plasmid tests."

She paused, unused to the silence that greeted her, Mordin had snuck into the room partway through her analysis of Delta's likely psychological outlook and he was nodding along, making notes on his Omni-tool, encouraged by this she continued.

"So at this stage he's potentially mentally unstable, suffering from genetic instability and is likely shocked that he now has a child though unwillingly. Skip ahead five, six years or so and Delta is still being tested on with plasmids, how they kept him from falling apart from genetic instability at that stage amazes me, Dr Solus-" She nodded to Mordin."-would know more than I would but at this stage Eleanor has been kidnapped and has been turned into a Little Sister, now I mention her because she's a key piece in Delta's history and impacts heavily on his psychological outlook. Anyway once it becomes clear that the Adam in Rapture is being consumed at a faster rate than they can replenish it they decide to get the Little Sisters out in Rapture harvesting it from.. the dead." She shivered at the ghoulish idea.

"But they can't just let them out alone surely?" Garrus interrupted this time whilst leaning on the table to get his point across. "If these Little Sisters are making and collecting Adam then they'd be a hot target, seen it happen on the Citadel, addicts would knife their supplier just to get high."

"You're right, they needed protecting from its resident splicers, enter the Big Daddy protection program, eventually they work out a method to slave a Big Daddy's life to that of a Little Sister, our man Delta was the first successful subject, coincidentally bonded with Eleanor, his biological daughter, possibly the only reason it worked in the first place. Its at this point his psychological outlook changes, somehow the bond is set and he gets to play the most fatherly role he can as her protector. This likely gave him the parental bond with Eleanor he never had, after all this is likely the first time he's seen or even met her. This is 'stage two' of his psyche outlook, it's from here it gradually improves."

Kelly holds up her fingers in a air quote for the next bit. "Next 'Dr' Lamb comes back from what I presume here is a prison and takes back her daughter, brainwashing Delta to shoot himself in the head in the process. Eleanor see's her father forced to shoot himself in front of her, scaring her for life no doubt. Poor girl..." Kelly face changed to one of sadness once this thought came to her. "And in doing so Eleanor seeks to return her father back to life... now the details here aren't exact but from what I can gather it took her almost ten years to accomplish, however after bringing him back to life she also removes all of the Big Daddy programming forced on him, he's a free man as it were, still the 'kill' bond still exists between them, meaning if she dies so does he. This is our 'stage three' outlook on his psyche, he fought and killed his way through a city filled with people either high or crazy on Adam trying to kill him or people who were Spliced up with enough Plasmids to take down a pack of Varren single handedly."

"Pah! Varren? Any warrior can take down a pack of Varren, just needs a good shotgun, heh heh heh..." Grunt smiled at the thought of takin down Varren, an easy feat for a Krogan like himself.

"You're right, but Delta was up against hordes of Splicers, possibly ten to twenty at a time, each who could take down Varren with only their plasmids. That alone shows that he's dangerous and has a single mindedness that allowed him to survive, it also indicates his intelligence, to survive in such conditions he couldn't have risked charging in, he would have to set traps, ambushes.. anything to out smart his attackers. It's likely he came after her to actually save her as well not just out of self preservation, as along the way he also saved many other Little Sisters, freeing them from the Little Sister programing and letting them get to safety despite the fact it would have been more advantageous to ah...to 'harvest' them for Adam. Each of these points clearly identify that Delta was concerned for the wellbeing of those he considered innocent. It was just unfortunate that in Rapture and similarly in Omega, the criminals outnumbered the innocents..."

"... so does that mean he's a good guy then?" Kasumi asked.

Kelly looked at the petit thief in amusement before answering the question. "I believe so, he was willing to put his life on the line to save Eleanor and the Little Sisters, he didn't kill anyone who he thought wasn't a threat, but anyone who was a threat... ended up not being a threat in relatively short order."

Shepard crossed his arms. "He could be very powerful ally against the Collectors, what does everyone else think?"

"Sounds like a tough guy, I bet I could take im." Grunt looked eager as he slammed his fists together.

"To be honest Commander, if this guy is as dangerous as Kelly and Mordin believe he would be a great addition to the crew, his combat experience alone would give us an advantage against the Collectors." Jacob crossed his arms, at this point their odds of survival were so low that anyone with combat experience was a boon.

Many of the other squad members seemed to agree with Jacobs view, on a mission this dangerous it'd be silly to turn away a possible ally, especially someone as dangerous as Delta was likely to be, plus if he didn't want to help them on the mission they could drop him off with Alliance Command and help out with rehabbing the Big Daddy's. Shepard looked at Miranda, she was one of the few individuals who he expected to object to Delta's awakening, but instead she kept silent, he'd have to ask her opinion later it seemed. _-Looks like everyone agrees then, we're waking him up, though we'll need Dr Chakwas help with this...-_ Shepard thought as he activated his radio. "Dr Chakwas? Can you come down to the conference room, we have need of some medical advice."

"Yes Commander, I'll be down shortly."

Shepard looked at the rest of the squad. "Alright we're going to leave it here, we're not going to leave for another five or so hours yet so you'll have plenty of time to get some R and R, Miranda and Mordin I need you two to stay behind and Kelly thank you for your evaluation. Everyone else, Dismissed."

Once again everyone filtered out of the room and back to where they were bunked... though Garrus headed back to the mess hall to finish his pizza, as the only individual on the Normandy who was a Dextro based lifeform he got a whole pizza to himself... or rather two pizza's due to an accidental double order, life was good the vigilante thought as he sat himself down... so was pizza.

Meanwhile Shepard, Mordin, Miranda and Dr Chakwas were discussing how exactly they were going to wake up Delta, well.. Shepard wasn't so much as discussing so much as listening in... so far Shepard had stayed mostly quiet while he let the experts have their say, after all it was their field of study.

"Ideal option would be to use Grunt's incubation tank, easy enough to make adjustments during operation, greater ease when combating potential risks." said Mordin.

Chakwas agreed but had other concerns. "The incubation tank would be ideal but what about the surgeries required to repair his body? If he has been grafted to the insides of that suit we'll need to operate before we use the incubation tank... not to mention reformatting the software inside the tank for human usage rather than Krogan."

"That wont be a problem Dr Chakwas, Delta it turns out was part of the Alpha line series of Big Daddy's, they were sealed inside the suit but never grafted to it, all we have to do is to cut him out of it and then we can begin work." Miranda interjected with her own information, ever since Shepard and the team had returned from Rapture Miranda had read through as much information as she could find on Rapture and Delta, it was her job after all as XO to make sure everything ran smoothly on the Normandy, the crew and potential new members.

"Hum.. yes that would certainly make the operation a lot more viable." Dr Chakwas folded her arms, the operation would proceed with considerable less risks if that was the case.

"So... what is it you're planning on doing to wake Delta up?" Shepard asked, so far he had heard more medical jargon in the last few minutes than he ever expected to know.

Dr Chakwas explained. "Essentially Commander what we'll be doing to Delta is administering a system shock, predominantly through his nervous system though it'll impact on all of his major organs but it'll reboot his body, its similar to the shock a new born baby goes through when they are first born, though in this case it'll a great deal less shocking to Delta as it'll just boost him out of the coma he's currently in and into a standard sleeping pattern. Then it's just a case of allowing his body to naturally awake, the only concerns I'd have at that stage would be about possible brain damage, if the information you found in Rapture is correct he could very well have been comatose for tens of years."

"Shouldn't be a issue, the Lazarus Vector is still inside Delta, should prevent any damage caused by catatonic state, also would accelerate healing process as well, shouldn't hinder operation but would need to be careful, future considerations, possibility like with Krogan that bullets could get stuck inside body due to rapid healing..." Mordin continued to write notes on his Omni-tool, prepping for the operation ahead.

Dr Chakwas turned to the Commander. "Commander could you speak to Grunt about using his incubation tank? Considering the situation it would be ideal if we used it post operation, it would certainly help ensure he suffers no complications."

Shepard nodded. "I'll speak to him, in the mean time I'd like you to get prepared for the operation, with the way this mission is looking we'll need the help sooner than later, get any supplies you need from the Aegis-1, I'll foot the bill." The Commander wasn't exactly short of money... just occasionally stingy with it, its amazing how much money you save when you don't spend the proceeds from the Commander Shepard based action figures for two years, a nice little surprise that was for the Commander.

"EDI, tell Joker to set a course for last known location of purgatory once we leave the Aegis-1, we'll need to pick up another squad member."

"Understood Commander." EDI's hologram popped into existence. "Estimated travel time twenty-eight hours, several mass relays will need to be navigated."

"Thank you EDI." Shepard turned back to the three more medically minded members of the crew. "I'll talk to Grunt, you guys get everything you need, dismissed."

As they left the room - each with their Omni-tools glowing - Shepard began thinking about what he could give to Grunt to convince him to lend them his Incubation Tank... guns? Perhaps?

* * *

Silence...

Dark...

Peaceful...

Safe...

Gone?

Delta became conscious for the first time in years, at first it was a struggle to stay that way, his body had been long accustomed to sleep that any motion caused pain as pins and needles leapt up and down his body. He breathed deeply - the pins and needles sensation began to recede as he opened his eyes and squinted in the bright light... after all it was the first time his eyes had opened in centuries too. But things looked... different... or strange... then he realised it... this wasn't Rapture. - _The walls and ceiling are_ _wrong, -_ He thought drowsily, - _too clean and pristine... no signs of use or damage... but where am - Wait! Eleanor!_ He jerked awake from his half asleep thoughts, where was Eleanor? They were on the escape sub and then she took his memories... - _How? -_ He thought as he gazed around the room as he sat himself up. - _How could I be alive? I died... again._ \- He smiled to himself as he thought of that. - _It wouldn't be the be the first time that she's brought me back though.-_ He looked around the room he was in, it wasn't a large room but the clean white and grey walls and ceiling made it look larger.

He looked to his right and saw what appeared to be a bulkhead leading to another room though other than that there wasn't anything interesting, he turned and to check out the rest of the room and he spotted someone watching him from a desk not far away from his bed. He reached for his Rivetgun only to find his hand grasping at nothing, whoever they were they had disarmed him, smart move, but they hadn't restrained him, not so good an idea... but as his hand touched the bed he lay on he jumped... the cool surface was oddly pleasant to his fingers, he looked down at his hand and then his body in surprise only to find that his diving suit had been removed... and that he could feel properly for the first time in what felt like centuries... which it was correct to some degree.

"You'll suffer from Hyper Sensitivity for a number of hours yet I'm afraid, possible a few days." Delta looked at the figure who was calmly sat in her chair, greying hair, an matronly feel about her. "It took us quite some time to get you out of that suit... though the fact that it was wielded shut didn't help in that regard and with you wearing it for as many years as you have it'll take quite a bit of time to acclimatise without wearing it." She continued, not intimidated by his size nor the fact that his first reaction to seeing her was to grab (Though unsuccessfully) for a weapon. "Now normally I'd ask how you were feeling but considering the damage done to your vocal cords I'm afraid that's out of the question, at least for a few hours yet... I'll set you up with an Omni-tool so you'll be able to communicate to our non-English speaking crew members. In the mean time I'll inform the Commander that you're awake." She turned to leave the room leaving a befuddled Delta sitting on a Med-Bed, just before she left though she said one last thing. "Ah if your hungry there's some pizza in the fridge and some bottles of water, just don't touch the vials in there, I'll be doing some blood tests later with them, I'll be back in a few minutes." And with that she left.

* * *

And there we go! Chapter 6 next, just how will Delta react when he realises the situation he's in? Find out in chapter 6!

Once again big thank you for the reviews, support and the follows! See you next time guys and girls!


	6. Chapter 6 Where am I?

Alright guys! I'm back and I'm back with chapter six! Hope you guys enjoy it, also I feel at the moment I may be micromanaging a lot of what's going on at the moment in the story, it's almost feeling like the story is starting to drag on a little with so little progress and I apologise for that! I'll try and get these stories a little straighter for the next Chapter! Also! Longest chapter yet! Also if anyone has any suggestions about how to portray Delta they would be greatly appreciated! Since he never says anything in the game its hard to picture a personality for him... so help! Please! Anyway I hope you enjoy!

So once again with the blanket statement that I own nothing and have nothing to do with Bioware the creators of Mass Effect or Irrational the creators of Bioshock, with nothing left to mention I say onwards with the story once more!

* * *

With the door closed and no one in the room Delta's first thought was to grab a weapon and make an escape, but with the familiar feeling of an empty stomach he decided that getting some food wouldn't be a bad idea... he still had his plasmids so he wasn't exactly helpless, no matter the situation. Still, he decided to it was best to check his plasmids... he clenched his hand and used the last plasmid his daughter had given him, the one to call her anytime, his hand began to glow, _-At least I'll know if she's safe...-_ He clenched his hand tighter and activated it... only for nothing to happen. That was until he saw the memory she had embedded in his gene's.

* * *

 _"Father! If you're seeing this then you're awake, at long last._ " She smiled, though it seemed to be a sad smile... " _I didn't have much time to record this, but I'll adjust the plasmid I gave you to trigger this memory, as of now your_ _genetics are starting to settle into a fixed state... just like every other Big Daddy in Rapture, once the Little Sisters and I got to the surface we were... afraid._

 _But your memories helped us, we found Dr Tenenbaum and Mr Porter and they helped us get a life on the surface... they also helped me when I tried to save Rapture later... Not long after we escaped Rapture hundreds of people also did so, the only ones who stayed were the ones too spliced to understand how far gone Rapture was or even how far gone they were... everyone who survived just wanted to forget it, to get away from the nightmare... but in the end father, within twenty years of us leaving - Rapture died... with no more Little Sister's and no one in control the splicer's just fought each other, for territory, weapons, supplies and whatever Adam was left over..._ _no one attacked the Big Daddy's because there was nothing to gain... in the end the only one's left in the city were the those_ _forced into the protector program... they tried so hard to fix the city... even when no one was left... I have left audio files and documents for you, I managed to lock them to your plasmids, they explain far better than I can about what happened..._

 _But you should have seen it father! The Little Sisters, everything was a new experience for them, it was like they forgot what the surface looked like when they were down in Rapture, seeing the sun, the rain, snow... you gave it to them father... the life they never thought they could have again."_ She looked distracted as she said this... her memories bleeding through to show Delta the looks on their faces, the giggles as they threw snow at one another...

 _"Anyway, f_ _ather in order to bring you back I had to put the Adam I took from you back into your body... the Vita-chamber's wouldn't work on you because it could tell that you were still alive... in me. But putting your Adam back in your body also caused problems... a part of me got put in you too... that's why the plasmid that'll summon me won't work... because there's a part of me already with you. The other Plasmids in your body work fine though... I just couldn't wake you up myself... no one could... so I'll travel the galaxy and look for ways to wake you, this may startle you though but the year I'm recording this memory is 2158... A lot had happened since Rapture and it turns out we are not alone in the universe, I'm going to go out and see if the technology they have made_ _can wake you up, see if they can save you were I can't,_ _but since you're seeing this you're already awake! Come and find me. I want to see you again Father._

* * *

Delta gripped the bed, feeling dizzy as the vision ended, but that didn't matter, Eleanor was alive and well! The traveling the galaxy part could wait until later. Delta was just feeling grateful that she was ok. But aliens? His stomach growled again, perhaps it was best to get food now and worry about Eleanor after.

He turned his body so that his legs could touch the floor at the side of the bed and stood... only to fall back on his butt, he grimaced as he felt pins and needles through his feet and legs, getting food from the fridge is going to pose more of a problem than he thought. He waited a few moments more before attempting to stand again, this time however while he could still feel the pins and needles sensation in his legs and feet it was manageable. Taking slow steps he headed towards the fridge the doctor had gestured to, luckily it was only a few meters away from his bed, though it felt considerably longer as each step seemed to send small jolts of pain through his feet and legs even as they were suffering from numbness and pins and needles... still he managed reach the fridge within a few moments of leaving the bed and as a result; he had reached the pizza. The brand of pizza wasn't one he recognised but he could certainly recognise the faint smell of a pizza that had been liberally covered in chunks of ham, bacon and plenty of cheese. Having retrieved his prize: half a pizza and a bottle of water, he made his way to the chair the doctor had used before she left the room, it was considerably closer than the bed at this stage and the constant pins and needles he was feeling made it a chore to get back to the bed.

 _-Cold pizza? I can do better than that...-_ He thought as his hand warmed up with a familiar feeling, Incinerate had plenty of uses, setting traps on fire, setting people on fire and with a little bit of skill and practice, not setting food on fire... just warming it up. With a piece of pizza in hand and a few quiet flames to warm it through; Delta had a meal fit for a hungry man, a very hungry man judging by the sounds his stomach was making so without further ado, he began to eat his first proper meal in perhaps two hundred years. To anyone else it would have been mostly soggy, yet slightly burned pizza... to him; it was heavenly. He was still sat enjoying his pizza several minutes later when the door open again and two people entered the room, one was the doctor who had left the room only minutes before and the second was what appeared to be a military man, the Commander the doctor went to inform, presumably.

-POV Change-

Once Dr Chakwas informed Shepard of Delta's awaken state, Shepard did two things, one was to do the obvious and actually go and meet Delta, while the second was to make sure he was sufficiently armed enough that he didn't have another encounter like the one he had with Grunt, a big part of him was hoping that Delta won't be as aggressive as Grunt was when they first met. The problem Shepard had though when he entered the medical bay was not one he expected, rather than the looming figure of a seven foot tall armour-less Big Daddy surrounded by flames and possible lightning bolts, what Shepard saw was... a seven foot tall Big Daddy trying rather fruitlessly to reheat cold pizza without burning it with a hand that had been engulfed in flames, all whilst trying to sit on a chair that was clearly not designed for him, not to say Delta was overweight... the chair had originally been made for Dr Chakwas, but Delta had managed to perch himself on the chair, it would have looked comical had he not been seven foot tall, covered in scars and holding a burnt piece of pizza in hand. That was still on fire.

Shepard also felt over dressed, seeing as Delta was wearing nothing more than a recovery gown while Shepard had an assault rifle on his back and a pistol attached to his hip... instead Shepard took it in his stride and offered his hand to the seated giant.

"Subject Delta? We didn't have any records of your name before you became a Big Daddy but either way it's a pleasure to meet you." He said, Delta looked wary but shook Shepard's hand in greetings. "I'm Commander Shepard, Alliance navy, Council Specter, welcome aboard the Normandy."

Delta still didn't say anything, though considering the level of damage Dr Chakwas, Mordin and Miranda had found when they were operating on Delta it wasn't unusual, they had found metal staples embedded in his vocal cords, purposefully mangling them ensuring that he could never speak - only moan like the other Big Daddy's they had encountered, though they had since been removed his voice would take several weeks to a few months to recover.

"Anyway." Shepard continued. "We'll get you some new clothes sorted out for you and an Omni-tool so you can communicate while your vocal cords heal... and then we'll get you up to date with what's happened while you've been unconscious, unfortunately you've been that way for a long time."

-POV Change-

Delta nodded as he got up out of the chair and sat himself back down on the bed, the pins and needles sensation in his legs had faded considerably since he had been sat, he shrugged to himself, perhaps it was just how he had been laying on the bed. Either way, the Commander was offering both clothing and information, both were things Delta needed right now, especially in the clothing department, gown's were all well and good but when it was a size to small for you and it is tied together behind your back with laces... to say they were straining was an understatement... combine that with a complete lack of any underwear? Not something Delta wanted to share with everyone.

"All right I'm going to go and speak to Sargent Gardner about some food for us, I take it you're still hungry?" Shepard asked. Delta was in fact still hungry, he hadn't been as successful as he'd have liked when he was re-heating the pizza... "Alright I'll see what Gardner has, meanwhile Dr Chakwas? Can you get Delta some clothing sorted? I think his gown will break if he stretches to much." Shepard turned back to Delta after Dr Chakwas left the room to get a spare uniform. "Also I'll get that Omni-tool sorted for you, I'll have Mordin come in and show you how to use it, just don't be too alarmed ok? He's a Salarian, talks fast, incredibly intelligent but sometimes has trouble keeping focus and he's... not from around here? I'll explain when he gets here..." Shepard turned and left the room, Delta could see him through the window, talking to an older man in what looked like a kitchen area.

Delta looked around, it didn't look like the future, though there were a few things that did look a great deal more advanced than what he's seen in Rapture, the medical was one of them, they made Rapture look like a butchers shop, he could recognise some pieces of equipment, syringes in a draw, surgical tools... the basics, though there was plenty of equipment he didn't recognise... oddly shaped tools, strange glass displays with digital read outs on them... maybe this was the future after all.

While he was examining the room the Commander returned, two steaming plates of what looked like curry in each hand. "Alright! Glad I got those food supplies when I did, though we may need more, how's curry strike you Delta?" Shepard asked. Delta could smell it, the rumbling growl of his stomach was more than enough of an answer for the Commander. "Thought so, here." Shepard passed a plateover to Delta, along with a hunk of bread and a spoon. "Dig in, Mordin has a few tasks he has to get sorted and he'll be here, just as I said earlier, don't be alarmed.

This Mordin fellow was gaining Delta's attention, anyone who got warned about the same person several times over will automatically start taking notice, in both the individual doing the warning and the person to weary of... -T _he Commander continues to warn me about him... maybe he's crazy? Or an alien? Eleanor did say she was exploring the galaxy...-_

Either way Delta got his answer soon enough, half way through his plate of curry and Mordin walked into the room, Delta's first thought that it was a Splicer, considering his history in Rapture and the good Professors history of genetics, he wasn't exactly wrong. Delta did what he always did if anything involved a Splicer, he formed an attack plan, if it was a Splicer he could handle it, but Shepard's constant warning about 'not being alarmed' stopped Delta from outright attacking, instead he stayed on the bed, curry cooling on the plate on his lap and watched Mordin cautiously as he approached them.

"Ah, Shepard! Glad you're here, hoped you would be, helps ease communication when confronted with an unfamiliar face, also set my Omni-tool to vocalise in English, figured would help when communicating with Delta." Mordin turned from Shepard and sat on the bed next to Delta's. "Sorry for delay, had brainwave while configuring Omni-tool, sorry for the pun, but was considering ideal solution to Delta's communication during combat, believe I have a work around, have set Omni-tool to scan brainwaves, thus the pun, in order to use as predictive text as such, Omni-tool will monitor brainwaves during typing of message, then will predict message Delta wishes to send based on brainwaves, ideal during combat, will require trial and error however to match brainwaves correctly though... would allow for greater communication efficiency during combat though." Mordin turned and grabbed the device from one of his pockets and handed it over to Delta. "Also greetings! Mordin Solus, Salarian Geneticist and former STG operative, still have clearance." Mordin introduced himself.

Delta on the other hand just stared at Mordin, Mordin spoke so fast that Delta only caught part of what he said, though he managed to grasp the gist of what he was saying, he examined the device a few time before working out how to strap it to his arm, not too dissimilar to the Hack tool he had in Rapture, though the Omni-tool had more than a few bells and whistles when compared to the Hack tool. Shepard took over as he began to explain how to use the Omni-tool.

"Ok so the 'On' button is here, it runs on an integrated internal battery which will last about ten years, since we're military we get the best gear so this Omni-tool has an Eezo based miniature reactor built inside, I'll explain more later anyway and this..." The Commander continued to explain all of the functions and features the Omni-tool had, from weather apps for the galaxy (not a program Delta felt he'd use), record mode (again not something Delta thought he'd use but may come in useful) and all of the various games that came pre-installed (Something Delta considered may come in useful later) and finally the communication programs.

"Ok so on this screen you type here an when you've finished you just press this button here, no not that one, this one here." Shepard said as he pointed to a different button on the screen, he felt like he was teaching an elderly person to use electronics for the first time... little did he know Delta was messing up on purpose to see how the Commander would react.

"That's it." Shepard and Mordin both stepped back to give Delta room to play around with the Omni-tool, while Delta began playing around with the settings on the Omni-tool Dr Chakwas returned with the new clothes.

"Delta? I'll leave the clothes on the bed here." She then pulled a privacy curtain around Delta's bed so he could change without becoming a spectacle. Meanwhile Dr Chakwas, Mordin and Shepard began discussing Delta's recovery time after Dr Chakwas set up a sound barrier normally used for patient confidentiality.

-POV Change-

"I was surprised to see him up so soon, I had him hooked to an IV drip after the operation but the cuts from the surgery healed up remarkably fast, though as soon as I removed the IV drip his recovery slowed down, but still, to be up and moving less than six hours after the operation?" Asked Dr Chakwas in disbelief, Delta's recovery time wasn't quiet on a par with a Krogan but it wasn't far off.

"Yes, didn't expect such swift recovery times, possibly due to being a Big Daddy? Constant danger, continuous battles in defence of Little Sisters? Could have been genetic adjusted in order to enable longer duration during battle? Maybe gives increased regeneration to enable survival during constant danger? Would make sense due to role in Rapture."

"At least this way we can have enough time to prepare him for our next mission, if he agrees to work with us that is. If not, I think we'll get him up to date with what's going on, set up a credit account for him and drop him off at Arcturus station, I know a few people he can stay with until he gets his bearings."

"Its probably best Commander, we're military or at least ex-military." Dr Chakwas said as she nodded at Mordin. "We don't know Delta's past but I don't believe he's military and even if he was, after what he's already been through I'm not sure I'd be encouraging him to sign up."

"Well we're still twelve hours out from Purgatory, we can get him as up to date as much possible during that time and if he doesn't want to join us on the mission we'll just drop him off after we pick up Subject Zero." Shepard said.

With everything said Dr Chakwas dropped the sound barrier only to be met with a greeting from the rooms only other occupant.

" **HelloCommanderShepardDrChakwasAndProfessorMordinThankyouForTheClothingDoYouKnowWhereTheSpaceButtonIs**?" Delta was dressed in his new clothes, it was the casual uniform everyone seemed to like, though despite being the largest size still looked tight on Delta, his Omni-tool was also lit up and broadcasting in English. He finally had a voice for the first time since becoming a Big Daddy, although without using spaces between words it seemed.

Shepard smiled, now they could have a proper conversation, or at least they could once the space key had been sorted out. "No problem Delta, now that we can talk lets get you up to date. You have a lot to catch up on."

* * *

Meanwhile on the Citadel Councillor Anderson was at his desk answering a vid call he from someone he should have contacted several weeks ago.

"My son is alive and I find out through a _news article_? What am I? An estranged aunt? Anderson! I would have expected a curtesy call at least! But the first I hear about it is through a news article in 'Council Matters Weekly'! I am not pleased. With either of you." The woman on the other end of the vid call was to say the least, a tad upset, and unfortunately for Councillor David Anderson he was on the receiving end.

"Listen Maria, I know you're upset but Shepard asked me to keep it to myself, he said he'd get in touch with you himself to give you the good news." Anderson had known Maria for a long time, in fact Anderson, Maria and Kahlee sanders had become drinking buddies on Arcturus Station after Anderson's failed Spector candidacy. Of which she helped guard as Captain of a small frigate, though she was one of many she was tasked with protecting Arcturus station, also her and Shepard's home away from home while on leave.

"I mourned his death for too long to have to wait for information that he's alive! Anderson, I'd have expected you to understand what I went through, first Henry and then my son? This is the second time this has happened including what happened on Akuze, I'm always the last to know it seems!"

"I'm sorry Maria, I should have told you, I just got caught with council work and trying to get Alliance Command to support Shepard more, it feels like he's the only one trying to do anything at times..." Anderson sighed, according to his sources most of Alliance Command would have considered Shepard a traitor had he not continued to send regular mission reports and intel drops through Admiral Hackett and himself. As it stood there was an awfully large amount of suspicion on any intel Shepard had provided so far, though he was starting to gain some popularity and trust again since news of his latest mission, under the sea of all places, had emerged.

Maria looked concerned, her son had always aimed to do well, but since Akuze he tended to drive himself too hard at times. Always trying to do the best for his crew. "What's my son gotten involved in now?"

"He's been actively looking into the missing colonists on the edge of Alliance space, but aside from Admiral Hackett and myself no one seems to be taking any notice. Your son's doing good work Maria and from what I've seen so far he has a good crew with him, He's picked up Garrus from Omega and Joker is piloting the new Normandy."

Maria let a small smile, if Moreau was piloting she wouldn't have to worry about naval combat... though her smile faded when she recalled the events that had lead up to her son's first 'death' and her smile faded completely as a question popped into her mind. "Wait, if no ones taking notice then who paid up for a second Normandy?"

Anderson looked away from the vid call to consider how to answer that question. - _She's going to find out at some point anyway... might as well spill the news...-_ He thought. "Unfortunately its Cerberus, not sure how they got the plans but they built the Normandy SR2 and managed to put life back into the Commander. At this stage I'm not sure if to thank them for what they did or to curse them and demand answers to what their game is."

Maria smiled. "Well I'll be more than happy to thank The Illusive Man for bringing my son back, though it'll only be when he has been arrested and Cerberus has been shutdown or while I'm standing over his grave. Keep me in the loop Anderson, I want my son to be able to be able to come home, regardless of what Command thinks."

"I'll do what I can Maria, humanity needs him back too." They finished their conversation and cut the vid call, despite his rank as councillor, Anderson was slightly scared of Shepard's mother, he had seen her slap Udina when he made a snide comment about Shepard's death, a slap that had dislocated his jaw and knocked three teeth loose. - _Mothers are terrifying, no mater what rank you are-_ he thought as he began writing an email to Shepard.

 _Shepard, Anderson here._

 _I just got of a vid call from your mother, you better contact her..._

* * *

Once Dr Chakwas had given Delta a clean bill of health she had proceeded to essentially chased everyone out of her med bay, 'only sick or injured people allowed aside from doctors' she said as the door closed, leaving Shepard to have to find a new venue to have their discussion. In the end they settled down in the mess hall just outside of the Med bay for three reasons, reason one was the fact that it had really comfortable seats, Cerberus had spared no expense on seats, safety in engineering on the other hand? Well Shepard had already thought of that, reason two was that Gardner was still on his shift and Shepard really liked the new coffee, 'Battlemaster', that Gardner got from the Citadel, and reason three? Shepard was still concerned about Miranda's outburst in their last meeting... they hadn't repaired the dent yet either.

"Ok so where to start... ok so you have seen how much more advanced our technology is right? Well unfortunately we are no longer in the twentieth century." Shepard paused as Delta nodded, Shepard didn't know that Delta knew that already. "In fact the current year is ah... well its... 2185."

Delta didn't say anything, he nodded at the Commander to continue, if it really was 2185 then Delta had a lot to learn about how things had changed in the last two-hundred years or so.

"Ok... so lets see, in the 1970's the world first started to..." Shepard told him, he told Delta about everything that happened, the last two-hundred years of development, finding out that humanity wasn't alone in the cosmos... the First Contact War, eventually working his way up to more present times, such as humanities place on the council and his Specter status and the events of the last few years... and most recently the kidnapping of colonists from around the Traverse and the Collectors, Mordin meanwhile had disappeared back to his lab halfway through explaining the last two hundred years to Delta.

"And that brings us just about up to date... I've glossed over quite a few bits though but we'll get you a copy of the Codex which'll help you out quite a bit..." Shepard began to trail off, Delta hadn't interrupted once during the two hour presentation Shepard had given him, had it not been for his rapt attention though Shepard would have thought he dosed off.

"So... what do you want to do? If you want after our next mission we can drop you off back on Earth, the Alliance could certainly do with someone like you. Alternatively there's a place on the Normandy for you, I seen what a Big Daddy can do and from what records I can find they say your the best of them, we could do with someone like you on our squad, though admittedly it'll take us through the Omaga-4 Relay and no one has ever returned, at this point it's considered a suicide mission by most of the crew." Asked Shepard tentatively.

" **People are getting kidnapped? Children as well**?" Delta clenched his fists as his Omni-tool responded, Ryan had had him kidnapped and locked away, all the Little Sisters were either kidnapped or sold to an orphanage and no Big Daddy ever had a choice about what they became... but Eleanor was out there too, she had a better chance than anyone but still...

"Yeah, entire colony's are going dark, everything is all fine one minute, the next minute and the colony stops all out going contact, by the time anyone realises or gets to the colony there's no one there. Its as if they just vanished."

Delta thought for a moment, he still needed to get information on Eleanor, but she might have left something behind in the files she mentioned... and with the amount of plasmids Eleanor had when he last saw her... she'll be ok, he'll just have keep searching for her while he helps the Commander... _-forgive me Eleanor, it'll be a while yet before I see you yet...-_

" **I'll help, but.** " Delta agreed but he wouldn't abandon his search for Eleanor...

Shepard nodded. "Eleanor right?." When he saw Delta nod in agreement he continued. "Once we read over the information, you being her biological father and protector for a time we suspected that you might want to see her again... and that she might still be alive here and now two-hundred years later due to the gene-recall point... I've had EDI looking over articles news trying to find any hint of where she might be but so far no luck."

" **Edi?** " Delta asked.

Just as he asked EDI herself popped up.

"Commander, we are eight and a half hours out from the last known location of 'Purgatory', however we have just received contact from a 'Purgatory' representative that they have just moved to a neighbouring star system, an estimated two hours has been added to our arrival time."

"Thanks EDI, why don't you introduce yourself to Delta while you're here?" Asked Shepard as got up and stretched, setting for two hours straight and just talking is hard work after all.

The pawn like figure of EDI's avatar turned to face Delta, which was impressive considering it was hard to tell which direction she was facing at the best of times.

"Welcome aboard the Normandy Delta, I am an Enhanced Defence Intelligence, the Artificial Intelligence stationed on the Normandy, the crew call me EDI, if you have any questions I'll be more than happy to answer them."

Delta paused in contemplation, while he had plenty of questions to ask he was sure the Commander would be answering then anyway... though...

" **You're like 'The Thinker'**?" He typed.

"The 'Thinker'? Please wait one moment, scanning all documents on Rapture for more information." A few moments went by before EDI came back to the conversation. "No information found on The Thinker, please elaborate."

"The 'Thinker'? We saw some error message on one of the basic computers in rapture saying something about a lost connection to The 'Thinker', can you explain more?" Asked Shepard, if Rapture had anything like EDI then it would seem that Adam and plasmids weren't the only things Rapture was capable of.

Delta paused for a few minutes as he proceeded to type out a message on his Omni-tool. With a final button push his message was vocalised. " **Don't know much about The Thinker, As a Big Daddy nobody tells you anything, just instructions. I heard about The Thinker from its creator when I was incarcerated in Persephone, he and I were in opposite cells, Charles Porter. Ended up on the protector program the same time I did, though he never got bonded to a little sister he was part of the Alpha line of Big Daddy's. Anyway he said he had built a thinking machine - The Thinker, capable of running Rapture, the electricity, plumbing, trains - everything was run by The Thinker. But Porter said it was capable of more, it could 'think' for itself, like EDI can.** "

There was stunned silence from Shepard... though EDI wasn't saying much else either though if the continues flickering of her avatar was to go by she was trying to process what she'd heard, Rapture... had made AI before mankind managed to get beyond the moon.

"Other than the error message we got from the computer there wasn't any other information on The Thinker, do you think its possible that it was damaged after all these years? Two-hundred years without proper maintenance is going to cause havoc with any computer system." Said Shepard, curious as he was about this new AI after two-hundred years it would likely be inoperable.

Delta on the other hand just shrugged. " **Not sure, everything working fine when you were down there? Drones were working properly, electricity and plumbing was working in the rebuilt areas? If The Thinker wasn't running rapture then something else must have been. Though Rapture probably wouldn't have fallen into as bad a condition as you found it in if The Thinker was still operational.** " Half way through letting his Omni-tool answer Delta spotted Garrus walk through the Mess hall and grab some Dextro rations from the Kitchen.

"Garrus!" Shepard called from his seat as he saw Delta staring. "Come meet our newest squad member, Delta this is Garrus, Garrus this is Delta, Garrus was with us when we took down Saren and was on the Normandy with us up until it got destroyed..."

Garrus nodded his head and sat down with them, though h did pause for a moment to peer at EDI's flickering avatar. "Good to meet you Delta, I'm the ships sharpshooter and badass vigilante, don't let Shepard tell you otherwise, I also calibrate the ships guns in the main Battery."

" **Good to meet you too**." Delta nodded back at Garrus, he found himself strangely calm meeting an alien he had only found out about less than two hours ago, then again with his experiences in Rapture its not surprising.

"I am surprised though." Said Garrus as he sat down at their table. "Most people who see and meet an alien for the first time." He gestured to himself with his ration bar. "They mostly either stare or freak out at them, you haven't done either."

Delta shrugged, they may have read about his history but they never saw what he saw, compared to some of the sights of Rapture, or rather its inhabitants, seeing an alien walking around was nothing alarming.

" **Rapture was a terrifying enough place during the civil war, not much could scare me now**."

"Fair enough..." Garrus was silent for a moment before he turned to Shepard. "Our next mission will be picking Subject Zero up from Purgatory right Shepard?" Shepard nodded, he could see were Garrus was taking this. "Simple pick up, might be an ideal mission for you to see how we work. What do you think Shepard?" Garrus asked.

"Nice calm mission like this would be perfect to start you off, only thing is while we cut you out of your dive suit and its the only thing that's your size at the moment." Shepard grimaced. "We can repair and upgrade it so you can slip in and out of it, plus attach a shield pack so you have some basic shields, though I'll have a word with The Illusive Man about getting you something more appropriate, you're a little bigger than our standard armour size you see." Once stood, Delta was just over seven foot in height, he was tall but also muscular, their regular armour would leave a few gapping holes in his defence, hopefully The Illusive Man could come up with something more substantial.

Delta nodded in agreement, a mission like this would be ideal to get to grips with how they ran their missions - plus he had always fought solo, fighting with others will take some getting used to.

" **Probably best, I can use my plasmids through my suit, not sure if your armour could take the stress of an Incinerate or Winter Blast going off point blank.** " Delta shrugged, he hadn't see their armour before but to him plasmids were both his offense and defense.

"I'll talk to Jacob and see what adjustments he can do to it, we have..." Shepard paused as he checked his Omni-tool. " ten hours before we arrive at Purgatories new location anyway, should have enough time to get something sorted out."

"Maybe Ken or Gabby from engineering could give a hand?" Suggested Garrus as he chewed through another of his Dextro ration bars. "They both know more about keeping atmosphere inside an enclosed space than any of us."

Shepard approved. "I'll have a word with them too, Garrus once your finished eating can you give Delta a tour of the ship, get him somewhere to bunk and introduce him to the other squad members, I'll get people started on patching up your armour Delta... we unfortunately left more than a few holes in it..."

* * *

Delta spent next several hours roaming the Normandy with Garrus, meeting with the crew and the squad he'd be working with and learning what and who was where on the ship. Delta's first thought on the Normandy was about how small it was, no wide open spaces, no real room to move about except for the hanger, he was used to Rapture with its open spaces and complex layout, though at least it made learning the layout of the ship a lot easier.

Garrus began by taking Delta on a top down tour of the Normandy, first stop, the Commanders office/bedroom, though not actually inside, the Commander could show Delta his bedroom if he wanted to, Garrus didn't have the heart to show Delta their esteemed Commanders mess of a bedroom, plus no one wants to see dirty underwear laying around.

Next Garrus took Delta around and showed off the CIC, introducing him to Joker in the cockpit. "So you're Subject Delta, I was going to lead with the 'I thought you'd be bigger', line but to be honest your almost as big as Wrex so that kinda makes it a pointless statement. Here." Joker grinned as he held out his hand in greeting. "The names Joker, best pilot in the galaxy. Just don't shake my arm to much, I have Vrolik syndrome."

" **Vrolik syndrome?** " Delta asked, unfamiliar with the term.

"Glass bones, I can walk at slow pace but if I go much faster I'll start getting micro fractures in my legs and actual breaks come fairly soon after, I've learned to live with it, still the best pilot in the galaxy though." Joker smiled.

"And I am EDI, Delta, we met earlier." EDI's avatar popped up on the console next to Joker and for someone who has Vrolik syndrome Joker jumped pretty high in his seat.

"Yup... this is EDI. The all seeing eye of the Illusive Man... second to Miranda of course." Said Joker once he got himself comfortable in his seat again. "EDI acts like the mom or as a secretary most of the time, non-stop reminders for everything and always with the rules."

After a couple of minutes talking Delta and Garrus left Joker and EDI bickering in the Cockpit, something about Joker's chairs being in the upright position during flight, and Jokers response of when he'd ever get the chance to relax in it if he was always flying the ship.

Next Garrus and Delta continued their tour of the ship, bypassing the lab as an unusually excited voice could be heard talking about DNA target sites and several other medically related jargon... and bypassing the armoury once they found out Jacob was on one of the lower levels. After which they made their way down to the main crew deck where Garrus introduced Delta to Miranda and Kasumi.

"Delta it's a pleasure to have you on the mission with us." Miranda nodded to Delta as she stood behind her desk. "I'm XO on the Normandy, I'm in charge in the event case the Commander is unable to take command at anytime. If you have any questions or queries EDI should be able to handle them but if you have any requests they'll need either my or the Commanders approval, do you have any questions at the moment?"

Delta nodded his head and began typing. " **Too many questions for now, but I'll ask when I know more."**

Surprisingly Miranda nodded at those words. "That's understandable, it's easier to know exactly what to ask once you know more about the situation. Anyway I still have some reports to write and forward to Shepard and the Illusive Man, I'll let you get back to exploring the Normandy."

Once Dismissed Garrus took Delta to the port observation to meet Kasumi, upon entering however they found the room empty. Garrus changed the sight setting on his sight lens to infra-red, just in case she was still in the room.

"Haha, sorry Garrus but I'm invisible even to infra-red." Said Kasumi as she de-cloaked in front of them, Garrus sighed, he still couldn't detect her when she cloaked it seemed. "So your the new guy huh?" She asked as she circled Delta. "I saw them bringing you up from the hanger earlier. You know even without the suit you still look pretty big, but more interestingly I saw some of the new toys they brought up with you. Don't suppose you're willing to share?" She smiled creepily, her eyes hidden by her hood.

" **Go ahead."** Delta typed. **"Weapons are only useful if they are being used."** Delta's philosophy on weapons was that they were only useful when in use and preferably when he was the one using them, but this wasn't Rapture and the rules were different, the Collectors wouldn't wait for him to reload, the more people with guns in hands Delta thought the better.

"You have to be careful with your belongings with Kasumi around though Delta." Garrus warned him. "Ever since Kasumi has been onboard my calibration set always seems to go missing."

"Hey no fair, that's not my fault, you just don't think before you put things down." Kasumi span around, grabbed a tool set off one of the shelves in the room and passed it too him. " _You_ left it in the canteen and I have Kleptomania, not my fault."

The two bickered good naturedly for a few minutes until Kasumi asked where Delta was bunking, to which Garrus jokingly suggested that Delta could hot bunk with the rest of the crew, despite the fact that Delta's legs overshot the bed by a good three inches. However Kasumi thought of something else. "You know Shepard did purchase some collapsible beds while on the Citadel, large sizes for all species, you'd just have to set it up somewhere."

Hearing that Garrus nodded. "There are several places you could bunk, currently the observatory isn't being used, neither is life support or the AI core, but they're not the best places to bunk really, no real room in the AI core and the life support is always arid compared to the rest of the ship... there is also a storage room just off from the hanger you could use, it can be isolated from the main hanger and accessed via a maintenance tunnel from the engineering level, its normally used to store spare parts for the Kodiak but its pretty empty..."

" **That would be fine, I only need enough room for a bed to sleep and store some clothing."**

Kasumi accessed a storage locker in the corner of her room and pulled out a canvas bed. "Easy enough to set up, Shepard got some good stuff." She said. "Roll out the bottom mat and the canvas frame floats just above it, micro mass effect field generators in the mat hold the whole thing up and together." She gestured to how to assemble the mat before putting it back in its bag and handing it to Delta. "Here you are, sharing's caring." She smiled warmly this time.

A few minutes later and Garrus took Delta to the storage room he'd be staying in, a short ride in the elevator, a quick introduction to Ken, Gabby and Jacob, all of which were having a rather heated discussion on upgrades to Delta's Big Daddy suit, the pitiful remains of which had been laid across a table in the centre of the engineering bay. Delta felt forlorn, the suit that he had been cursed with was also the same suit that saved his life more times than he could count and it was laying in pieces on the table, filled with gapping holes, along with one of the arms missing completely... it was lucky that they had another eight or so hours to get it repaired to a useable condition...

He didn't have long to stay forlorn as Garrus dragged him out of engineering and over to meet Grunt and Zaeed, both of which were discussing war stores, weapon mods and their current topic - which was the best weapon to use in any given situation. Grunt was trying to make it hard for Zaeed by asking which weapon would be best against Thresher Maws... it worked until Zaeed suggested orbital bombardment... to quote, "Nothin survives orbital bombardment, especially when the bastard doesn't realise its coming, had this one guy on vid com just before it started, idiot wanted credits and threatened to 'Spill the beans' on all my secrets or some such... thought he safe on a moon, well, ha, he wasn't safe for long."

Delta simply nodded along with Garrus while Grunt laughed after he saw the vid footage Zaeed showed him, they quickly left the two to their vid entertainment and Garrus finally showed Delta his new room, it took while but they managed to clear enough room that Delta could set up his bed, Garrus even managed to scrounge up a weapon bench and a desk to go in the room. It wasn't much of a bedroom but Delta had enough space to store what few belongings he had, as well as the data disk Eleanor had coded to him.

"I'll let you get sorted out Delta, Joker says we'll arrive at Purgatory in about seven hours time so most of the squad will be getting some sleep before the mission or just passing time playing Skyllian Five, Shepard normally gets everyone watching really bad horror movies too." Garrus grimaced at that. "Human horror movies are so cliché, but they are fun in a bad way. In fact I think Shepard is going to be starting one in the starboard Observation room in a few hours." Garrus said after checking his Omni-tool. "It'll be fun-ish, Shepard always has snacks on hand too."

After a moment of hesitation Delta replied " **Thanks but I want to get sorted in here first.** " Texted Delta. " **Got a lot to think about.** " He said.

Garrus nodded in understanding. "Fair enough, take the time you need, if you need help getting anything just let us know, we'll help in anyway we can." Delta nodded as Garrus left the room and made his way back to his quarters.

Delta sat himself down at his desk and pulled out the only real thing he had, Eleanor's data drive. Though he had no idea how it worked, the Commander had shown Delta how to operate it through his Omni-tool, with that being said Delta accessed the data drive, only to be prompted for a password on his Omni-tool screen.

-Password-

First plasmid?

Energy output:

-Password-

Rather than a text box to put the answer in Delta found himself looking at a series of fluctuating numbers that seemed to be measuring his bodies electrical output, he smiled. He clenched his fist and let a bolt of electricity roll across his knuckles, immediately the screen changed as the program automatically slotted in his electrical output as the answer.

After a few seconds of silence a list of files started to appear on his Omni-tool, he selected the most obvious one to start with - 'Play this one first' was the first file labeled right at the top of the list, once selected a video started to play featuring Eleanor. Delta settled himself down on his bed as Eleanor started to explain what she had done while Delta had been comatose.

* * *

It was EDI who woke Delta up, he had fallen to sleep half way through reviewing all the information Eleanor had laid out for him, it answered a lot of questions for Delta while opening up new one's for him, still, he shook his head and made his way up to the armoury, those thoughts could wait for until after the mission, another hour and the Normandy would be approaching Purgatory and Delta needed to get ready.

The doors opened into the CIC and Delta was about to take a left to approach the armoury when someone else approached him first, Kelly - the ship shrink, Delta wasn't fond of psychiatrists, though that is entirely due to the actions of one 'Dr' Sofia Lamb...

"Delta, I was wondering if we could have a talk at some point? Preferably after we've picked up Subject Zero, my job is to get to know everyone and to make sure everyone is... mentally prepared and sound for the missions ahead... though that doesn't make it sound good at all really..." Kelly was nervous, in front of her stood one of the biggest unknowns of the crew, though that might be topped once Subject Zero comes aboard...

Delta shrugged and then nodded, she wasn't 'Dr' Lamb, he had to get over her...and Kelly was a trusted member of the crew...

" **I don't mind having a meeting, I have had some bad issues with psychiatrists in the past though."**

"Ah, 'Dr' Lamb." Kelly held up her fingers as quotation marks. "I read about her in your history, I did a search for her on the old internet systems used on Earth after the briefing on your psychological outlook. A respected psychiatrist back then but for the wrong reasons... a lot of her work is considered backwards now... in fact she's used as 'what not to do or practice' material in some schools on Earth."

Delta blinked in surprise, Lamb had been a respected psychiatrist at the time Andrew Ryan had invited her to Rapture, but now she was considered backwards? The future was looking better than ever as far as Delta was concerned.

After a polite few minutes of talking and a confirmed time for the meeting both Delta and Kelly went their separate ways, Kelly went back to her console and began collating information she had on Delta for their meeting after the mission and Delta entered the armoury for the first time.

Guns... everywhere, attached to the walls, on tables - in parts on tables, some in partially built states, others fully built but partially open - holes where they were missing their ammo block... it was impressive. And in the corner was Jacob, Delta had met him briefly earlier when Garrus was showing him around.

Jacob turned to the door as he heard it open, he gave Delta a minute to appreciate the enormity of the room and the collective fire-power before approaching.

"Good collection don't you think? The Illusive Man sure knows how to stock a proper armoury, I keep them well maintained and ready to use though." Jacob nodded at each section of the room as he introduced the purpose of each section of the room.

"Fully assembled and loaded weapons are kept on the wall for crew usage in the event of a boarding, Shepard and the ground squad keep their weapons in the loadout unit, easy access to all weapons and the few prototypes we have along with the heavy weapons, tables are used for gun maintenance and test builds, we don't have a firing range yet but we can control test the guns, we have mass dampeners in the armoury for that purpose. Most importantly for the moment and for you too I expect we have a table sorted out for new guns... guns I'm sure you'll be familiar with." Jacob walked over to one of the tables on the far side of the room, Delta followed him and found many of the guns he was familiar with from Rapture laid out on the table though there was the occasional gun he didn't recognise they had all been cleaned and some were already being disassembled for maintenance and repairs.

"I was initially surprised at the amount of weapons the Commander found that aren't typically thought of as 'Weapons', when he showed me footage of what a Big Daddy could do with a mining drill it definitely made me see them in a different light though."

" **The mining drill was standard for almost all Big Daddy's at one point, our original purpose was to maintain and expand the city, before the war at least.** " Delta picked up the mining drill, checking it over for damage and wear, despite sitting on a shelf gathering dust for who knows how long it was in remarkably good condition... usable condition really...

"So I have to ask Delta... though are you sure you want to go by that name? It feels a little callous calling you by it I suppose..." Jacob looked awkward, honest and straight forward to the point, Delta liked that about him.

" **'Delta' is who I am, I don't remember much of who I was before I reached Rapture, none of the tabloids knew my name. They called me 'Johnny Topside', then Ryan had me locked up in Persephone, that was were they did the plasmid experiments, worse days of my life. But then along came Eleanor, not the daughter I envisioned having but my pride and joy all the same. 'Delta' is just who I am now.** " Delta took a breath, talking about his past, even just typing it out... made him relive more than a few memories...

"I can understand that, anyway the main thing I wanted to ask you was which guns are you thinking of taking for the mission? As far as I can tell aside from the hand gun all the others will still pack a punch against modern armour and shields."

At this Delta smiled, he only had one answer for that question. " **All of them.** "

* * *

So I sorta gave Delta a voice... but its hard to envision Delta as a character with out one... again any suggestions are more than welcome! Okay so that's it for this month! I'll see you guys next month for Chapter 7! Woot Woot! Also next chapter will have some more bits you'll enjoy(I hope), changes to how the ME world/Galaxy are! Also please keep reviewing, criticism can only help make this better! Thanks guys and I'll see you next month!


	7. Chapter 7 Purgatory

Last minute chapter! Ultimate power! Ok just so you guys are aware I'm on holiday from Thursday in lanzarote! So if any of you are there say hi! Anyway here is the newest chapter! Hope you guys love it!

As always let me know what you guys think and make sure you enjoy it!

So once again with the blanket statement that I own nothing and have nothing to do with Bioware the creators of Mass Effect or Irrational the creators of Bioshock, with nothing left to mention I say onwards with the story once more!

* * *

Once they were ten minutes out from Purgatory the Commander, Garrus and Grunt began suiting up, Delta however went down to engineering to pick up his armour from Gabby and Ken, Delta was surprised to see that his suit didn't look too different to how it originally was - with the exception of an integrated shield now and that his suit looked like it had been stitched and wielded together by Dr Frankenstein himself. Still Jacob, Gabby and Ken had done a good job and Delta managed to suit up just fine, it was strangely comfortable being back inside the suit, he didn't feel overly sensitive again... anyway he collected his guns, much to Jacobs surprise and stood behind the Commander with everyone else as they waited for the Normandy to finish docking procedures.

"Delta." Shepard said.

" **Commander.** " Delta responded.

"Are you sure you want to carry all that weight?" Shepard gestured to... well to Delta.

" **Yes Commander**." Delta nodded as he typed.

"Doesn't all that weight slow you down?"

" **Not enough for me to notice**."

"I see, so you always have this many weapons on you at a time?"

"Spirits, how do you deal with ammo storage when you have three types for every gun? You have ten different ammo types with you that I can see and you have extras for each type..." Garrus was truly amazed by what he saw on Delta, the fact that he could take the weight of all the weapons in the first place was pretty amazing but the ammo management that he'd have to do as well?

" **I have them for emergencies.** "

You have that many guns and ammo for 'emergencies'?

Delta shrugged. " **Rapture required them**."

It was a truth that Delta had learned the hard way while in Rapture, you be prepared for everything or something will get you. Though he had left behind several of the weapons that Jacob had deemed either too much (Like the launcher) or too small (the handgun) Delta still had an impressive collection, in his hand he held the Rivetgun, attached to the left of his waist was the shotgun, on his right was the Mining Drill, mounted on his back was the Speargun and on his right wrist was a Hacktool though he only had that so that he could use the mini turrets, the hack darts were next to useless thanks to a two hundred year difference in programing techniques, they couldn't crack the programing on a children's toy, let alone a security door designed to keep people out.

With a quiet hiss the dock opened its doors and the squad made their way through the docking tube and into Purgatory. Delta looked around, several guards were spread out on the other side of the room, facing them from a raised plateau, all armed with fingers on the triggers of their respective weapons.

"Welcome to the Purgatory, Shepard." Said the lead guard, a Turian if Delta wasn't mistaken. "Your package is being prepped and you'll be able to claim it shortly. This is however a high-Security vessel, you'll need to relinquish your weapons before we proceed beyond this point." The prison guard might have been talking to Shepard but he was keeping his eyes on Delta.

Then again everyone else in the room also had their eyes on Delta, fully armoured and armed as he was Delta reached just over seven and a half foot in height and had enough guns on him to ensure that anyone who didn't like him didn't live long enough to have regrets about fighting him...

"I have a very strong policy of not giving up my guns so... no." Shepard was straight to the point. The Prison guards didn't like that and made moves to point their guns at them but before they could take action another Turian emerged from a bulkhead further back in the room.

"Everyone stand down, Commander, I'm Warden Kuril, and this is my ship." He waved his arm at several of the guards, reluctantly they lowered their guns. "I can guarantee that your weapons will be returned before you depart, its just a standard procedure, can't risk the prisoners getting more dangerous than they already are."

"And its my standard procedure to keep my gun, especially when I'm about to enter a prison were every inmate is either a murderer, a serial murderer or a crazy guy willing to murder." Shepard wasn't about to let them get disarmed, especially in a prison this dangerous.

Just as it was starting to look like a standoff between the warden and the Commander the warden relented.

"So be it, we have more than enough security measures to take care of several armed guests, however I must insist that your... mech? Stays behind, I'm not going to risk any of the prisoners getting access to it or the weapons it carries in the event case of a riot."

Shepard grew annoyed. "My 'Mech' is actually a squad mate and you won't have to worry about him losing any guns, it's his skill with using them that you should be worried about." Shepard hoped that was the case anyway, they had yet to see Delta in action.

" **Not** **to interrupt Commander but perhaps I should stay here."** Delta paused trying to come up with an excuse **. "I need to do some work on the... docking mechanism?** " Delta suggested, before texting his next sentence to the squads private com's. " **When you refused to give up your weapon they pointed their guns at everyone but you, I don't know what they want but something's going on.** "

Garrus confirmed what Delta said. "He's right Shepard I wasn't certain of it but I didn't see a single gun get pointed your way, I'm with Delta on this, way too suspicious." He whispered quietly into his mike.

"Alright Delta you stay here, if you see anything let us know." Shepard played safe and turned to Warden Kuril. "You win Warden Kuril, _Delta_ will stay here outside the Normandy." Shepard radioed Miranda the plan. "Instead I'll take the Vigilante and the Krogan super soldier with me instead." He muttered under his breath. "I take it that wont be a problem?" He asked.

The Warden just shook his head. "That will be fine Commander, I just can't risk it with the prisoners we have here. Anyway, We're bringing Jack out of cryo. As soon as the funds clear, you can be on your way." The Warden checked his Omni-tool before nodding and turning away. "If you'll follow me to Outprocessing for the pickup, Commander."

Shepard nodded to Delta before he, Garrus and Grunt went ahead. In the mean time however Delta went back to the docking tube for the Normandy, he was out of sight of the guards where he was but he didn't get back on the Normandy, he did access his com however and told the Joker and Miranda what was going on.

"You sure you don't want to come in big guy? I'm sure Shepard won't mind." Joker voice came over the com, inviting Delta back into the comfort of the Normandy's leather seats.

" **I'll stay out here, if something really is up then it could go bad fast**." Delta began checking over all his guns and his drill, never know when it'll be needed, a stray bolt of lightning crackled over his knuckles, his plasmids were good to go too.

"I'm with Delta on this." Miranda's voice came of over the com's next. "If things do go south we'll need to respond as fast as possible, I'll alert the rest of the squad, just in case."

Delta silently nodded as he focused his mind on the plasmid he wanted and prepped its activation. " **Joker, can you get someone get me some of the EVE that Professor Solus made?"** Delta had asked Mordin to make more of the EVE for future use, Mordin had already been experimenting with it anyway, it wasn't an issue for him to make more. "I **have a method to monitor the Commander without being nearby.** " While Joker called for someone to grab some Eve, Delta switched from the com and focused on the activation of his chosen plasmid, Scout.

Seconds later Delta's 'Ghost' strolled past the guards posted at the entrance to the facility and passed through the automatic bulkhead, startling several of the guards who reacted to the doors opening but seeing nothing they decided not to investigate further. Ten minutes later and Delta managed to catch up to the Commander as they toured through the facility. While making sure to keep an eye on his Eve level, Delta followed them through the facility, Shepard wouldn't know it but it was his actions with how he treated the prison guards and the prisoners that cemented Delta's decision to stay on the Normandy. Delta continued to observe the facility, watching all the guards that seemed to be just too tense, holding their guns too tightly watching the Commander as they passed through the facility... aside from the guards tensing each time the squad walked passed them, everything seemed to be going fine at least until they got to Outprocessing... that's when things went bad.

"My apologies Shepard. You're more valuable as a prisoner than a customer." Came a familiar voice over the com as the door that was supposed to lead them to Jack merely opened to an empty cell. "Drop your weapons and proceed into the open cell. You will not be harmed, also don't bother attempting to contact to the Normandy Commander, I have blocked your coms and alerted all guards on the station, there's no escape Commander."

That was all Delta needed to hear as he stopped using Scout and returned to his body.

 **"Joker come in."**

"Hey Delta what's the emergency?" Jokers voice came over the com. It was lucky that whatever was blocking the coms wasn't as effective this close to the ship.

" **Shepard, Garrus and Grunt have been led into a trap - the warden's blocked all coms, I'm going to go in a provide assistance, did anyone bring that EVE out yet?** " Delta was already getting prepared, he was going to have to be quick and brutal if he wanted to get to Shepard in time to provide assistance.

"Shit! Ok opening docking bay door now, there's a bottle full of the stuff on the decontamination shelf. I'll give Miranda the news and get everyone moving."

 **"Understood, I've got it, I'm going after them."** Delta grabbed the canister of EVE off the shelf and inserted it into its waiting slot.

"Give us a minute and Miranda will be out leading a squad." Joker shouted down the com.

 **"No time. Kuril said that they house thousands of prisoners here and that he's alerted all the guards on the station, that could be hundreds of armed personal, I'm going cause some damage, see if I can pull some off the heat of the Commander, maybe knock out whatever's blocking the coms."**

"Alright but get to the Commander as soon as possible! He has a knack of getting out with everyone OK." - _Well... except Virmire...-_ He thought before shouting for Miranda over com.

Before Joker had finished what he was saying Delta had jogged down the docking tube, as soon as he came round the corner bullets started to pepper his shields, a short spray from his machine gun gave him enough time to grab his drill and charge up the stairs onto the plateau, once there he had a choice of four guards, one on his left, one on his right and two by the bulkhead leading into the main facility.

He chose the guard on his left, the Turian was only two meters away, no distance at all to a Big Daddy armed with a mining drill. "THUD" The sickening sound of the drill sinking into soft tissues and then the more sickening "CRUNCH" as the drill span, the sounds of soft tissues and brittle bone crunching together could be heard as his drill exited the guards back. The guard hung there for a few moments, shields flickering and sparking as they attempted to stop the spinning power of the drill despite the fact that the guard was already dead. Delta trudged towards the next guard, using the freshly impaled corpse of the guard as a temporary shield to the oncoming fire.

The guard that had been to his right attempted to move into a better firing position to shoot around Delta's 'Shield', that was until a bolt of lightning speared out of Delta's hand, overwhelming the guards shield capacitors and running havoc among his nervous system, the guard collapsed, his body smoking. Next came the two guards by the door, while Delta had been dealing with guard one and two they had already begun to retreat through the bulkhead into the main lobby of Purgatory and were now firing on him from cover on either side of the door. Not that it would help them much, spying a mug on a desk in the lobby Delta got ready to activate another plasmid of his, Telekinesis.

While they were distracting themselves by shooting at him, or rather shooting the body he was still using as a shield, he pulled it towards himself before launching it at the guard on the right. They both dived behind cover as the mug shattered against the bulkhead door, just as Delta wanted, the few moments it gave him was more than enough to charge up a chained Electro Bolt, allowing him to fry both the shield capacitors and the nervous systems of both guards as the lightning bolt shot from one guard to the other.

It took thirty seconds to deal with the guards dock side and moments later Delta was through the bulkhead door, so far none of the guards had reached the lobby yet, so Delta proceeded to get ready for them, pressing his hand against the bulkhead controls he activated incinerate, if he used Electro Bolt on the controls them they might be able to repair it, but if he completely melted the circuitry inside? They'd have to replace the entire control unit, that would give the Normandy crew more time to prepare. Once the flames had finished melting the controls, Delta began preparing the lobby for anyone wearing blue armour.

The greeting Delta was preparing was not a pleasant one, though that did depend on what armour you wore, if it wasn't blue and didn't have a blue sun's insignia then the lobby could be considered a fairly normal place that wasn't threatening at all, if the armour however was blue and had a Blue Suns insignia on... well... it really wouldn't be a very nice place to be.

Miniature turrets, already programed to shoot anything wearing blue armour and the Blue Suns insignia had been placed strategically around the lobby, each one pointing towards the two corridors leading into the room, the third corridor had been left free of turrets due to that fact that a large sign indicating 'Communications' had been posted on the wall. That was were Delta needed to go, and if he was going down there he'd make absolutely sure no one else aside from himself would be returning from that direction. With all preparations done for the lobby Delta trudged off down the corridor he had chosen, he did wonder though as he passed the sign indicating 'Communications', why all the signs had been written in English?

* * *

"So let me get this straight." Once Warden Kuril had finished his saying his piece Shepard decided to ask some questions and find out if Warden Kuril had actually thought this little stunt through. "You intend to take Cerberus's money - effectively putting yourself on the entire organisations shit list. Then you intend to imprison a Council Spectre who is, not to be arrogant but also classed as the 'Saviour of the Citadel' much loved throughout the galaxy? And then you intend to sell me on I suppose? Do you realise just how Cerberus and several other groups such as the Alliance would have an issue with you doing that? I mean Cerberus alone must have at least... well its four billion credits invested in me, at least another one to two billion credits invested in the Normandy and what you're taking for Jacks release... and you honestly think they'll just let you walk away?" Shepard snorted as he attempted not to laugh while Garrus shook his head and smiled while Grunt began his trade mark laugh.

"Admittedly the risks are quite high Commander, but do you think I would even consider this without having a plan or at the very least a strong backer to ensure nothing goes wrong? The Shadow Broker wants you and the Collectors want you, either one could give Cerberus an immense amount of trouble and they are both willing to pay enough credits to set both myself and the Blue Suns up for life, just surrender Commander, there's no escape."

Grunt and Garrus got prepared, Grunt grabbed his shotgun while Garrus pulled out his Sniper rifle, crouched down by a desk and lined it up with the only entrance to the room, 'ready and waiting' they signaled. Shepard pulled out his own weapon of choice, the Mattock, a single action rifle with more than enough power and accuracy to turn any battlefield in the favour of its user - and Shepard was fully intent on using it to its fullest capability.

"Have it your way Kuril, just don't regret it when I put my boot up your ass. Gentlemen, lets go and collect Jack before Warden Kuril does something I may have to make him regret." Shepard fired a concussive shot just as the first Blue Suns mercenary entered the room, the shot missed but hit the human just behind him while Garrus took his shot and began popping heads, Grunt just charged up to the door and began to empty his shotgun clip into any mercenary that came close. The moment his shotgun clicked empty he resorted to head butting anyone he had missed with his earlier spray and prey tactic.

All while this was going on, Kuril had begun to make preparations, he knew the Commander wouldn't just give up - it wasn't in his nature to do so, so Kuril had begun setting up isolation points all over Purgatory - once Shepard and his team stepped into one he could lock down that section and wait them out, it would be easy to alter the life support, reduce the oxygen concentration in that area, turn off all heating or deprive them of food and water until they could be subdued without too much harm.

What he didn't expect however was just how effective Shepard and his team were, they had eliminated all of the guards outside Outprocessing and had began to wage a three man war against all of Purgatory.

"Get Mechs down there now! We are losing too many people, I want all Mechs to engage Shepard and his team and I want everyone to start pulling back beyond the isolation points - draw them to them, whoever captures one of the Normandy's crew gets a bonus this year. Gamma Squad I want you to go and ensure Jack's cell is locked down and secured, they're going to try and reach Jack's cell before they head back towards the Normandy and any of the isolation points set up there." Warden Kuril paused and began checking in on his other forces on the prison ship. "Security station Alpha, I want you on lock down now, no one in or out, keep all prisoners in their cells - I don't want them under foot if this situation goes south." After a series of confirmations and 'Yes Sir's' from various groups he began checking up on the Normandy.

"Communications, what's going on with the Normandy, did Shepard manage to get a signal out to them?" Several gun shots could be heard on the com but no direct answer yet. "Communications answer me what's going on down there?" Just as he was about to redirect a squad down to investigate some one finally answered.

(I had to... it was the perfect moment!)

"Uh, everything's under control. Situation normal."

The voice wasn't one he recognised but the warden didn't care, there was too many people on the station for him to know them all.

"What happened?" Kuril demanded.

"Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?"

Kuril didn't like this, gun shots, silence and then everything being 'Normal'? Their current situation was anything but normal, plus they were supposed to be watching the Normandy. He redirected one of his squads to investigate.

"I'm sending a squad down there."

"Uh, uh... negative, negative. We had a reactor leak here now. Give us a few minutes to lock it down. Large leak, very dangerous." The voice coming through on the com sounded nervous, but like a forced or fake nervous, but what could he be nervous about unless... It was at this point warden Kuril began to get suspicious.

"Who is this?" He demanded. "What's your operating number?"

"Uh... its uh... 1142...eat my ass."

(It was too good an opportunity to pass up)

"Squads Golf, Hotel, Kilo and Tango converge on Communications, an unknown individual has hijacked coms, get in there and sort it." He paused and pressed another button on his Omni-tool making some quick changes to prisoner cell details.

* * *

Unbeknownst to the Warden however Joker was having a giggling fit on the Normandy, after wiping away a tear or two he hit the finished recording button on his Omni-tool, today was truly a beautiful day, his Star Wars and robot chicken dreams had come true.

After a few more seconds of sniggering he got his breath back and contacted Delta. "Great job getting the com system back online Delta, sorry to say it though but you have several squads incoming." Joker had been watching the feed from Delta's helmet cam since the start of the mission, Joker wasn't overly worried about him, after seeing Delta just strolling the corridors, firing bullets, lightning and actual fire at any and all blue suns mercenaries as if it was just 'another day at the beach' was an enlightening experience. Joker also knew for a fact that all the other squad members were also watching the footage as they prepared to storm into Purgatory after Shepard, while Miranda was actually recording everything on the video.

"Ha, Delta makes this look easy, you say we picked up a few of those plasmids down in Rapture? I might have to sample a few of them, Ha!" Said Zaeed as he grinned ear to ear while watching the footage.

"All well and good however Plasmid usage can cause Genetic Degradation, until cure or preventative found would suggest not using them." Mordin swiftly shot down Zaeed's plan by using flawless logic, until Kasumi came up with a plan of her own.

"That might be the case but I know more than a few buyers that would love to do this, even with the gene problems." Kasumi paused in thought before continuing. "I could show off this video of Delta and begin a bidding war for just one of the Plasmids, I'd make tens of millions of credits and that's just from wealthy individuals." A small giggle escaped her hood. "And if I pitched the auction to organisations researching genetics and gene therapy? I think I could be set for a long time." Kasumi's fingers twitched in anticipation, perhaps one of the plasmids could go missing without anyone noticing?

"Kasumi behave, if I find even one of those Plasmids missing I will be having talks with the Commander about your unusually long winning streak during Skylian-five last week, clear?" Miranda's eyes didn't leave her Omni-tool at all during Kasumi's reprimand but the faint smile on her face told more than enough, she had Kasumi dead to rights during the game but somehow Kasumi pulled out that one-in-a-million card combination, trumping everyone and winning the pot.

"Clear." Smiled Kasumi before she activated her stealth unit and vanished from sight.

"Alright Jacob, Mordin, you stay here, if anyone tries to board the Normandy, make sure that they don't succeed." They both nodded, Mordin checked his equipment and weapons while Jacob started barking out orders and getting everyone armed. Miranda turned to Zaeed and Kasumi and continued. "Zaeed and Kasumi, you're with me, our goal is to link up with Shepard while eliminating any resistance from the guards, if Warden Kuril is smart he would have already had all prisoners locked away or at least out of the way so we shouldn't have anything to worry about there."

Miranda began pointing out the route they would be taking on her Omni-tool. "We'll proceed through this route here while EDI locks down any security doors she can access that are off our route, that'll delay any armed response and get us to the Commander sooner but it won't keep the guards out forever. EDI, can you contact Delta and set a route for him to meet up with us?"

EDI's Omni-present voice emerged from the closest com unit. "I can, though I am having more trouble accessing parts of the station than I anticipated, most of the systems are manual access it seems, along with most of the security doors on your planned route."

"Ha, just means we'll have to shoot more guards to get to Shepard then, getting out won't be hard though, seven of us and this Jack we keep hearing about should be enough to mow through anything in our way! This is turning out to be a fun little mission after all." Zaeed didn't see a problem with this at all, in fact he was eager to start.

"Alright is everyone suited up?" Miranda asked, a chorus of 'yes's' and nods greeted her as she looked around the room, though before any of them could leave the room Joker buzzed in over the com with an update.

"Ok guys? Delta completely melted the control console for the lobby bulkhead to give us more time to get ready, but eh... looking at the damage he's done I think he might have inadvertently engaged the emergency door seals when he melted the console. You might have to cut through it to get in." Jokers low whistle could be heard over the com as he surveyed the damage.

Miranda frowned at this complication, while destroying the control console had been in their best interests it also slowed them down significantly. "EDI? Can you get diagnostics on those doors?" Miranda asked.

EDI immediately began scanning using the Normandy's extensive sensor arrays. "Scanning... confirmed, emergency bulkhead seals engaged. Also it appears that the bulkhead doors have been reinforced, likely to prevent forced entry for attempted rescue, it will take some time to cut through them."

"Bloody typical, you get excited to get in the fight and then the bloody doors don't open." Zaeed swore bloody murder, he had been looking forward to this since they began watching Delta mowing down Blue Suns mercenaries.

"We could try explosives, I know Shepard said not to test them on the Normandy but Delta did leave behind a launcher and several rockets and proximity mines." Jacob shrugged. "If we place the mines in the right places and remote detonate it might be enough to punch a hole through the bulkhead."

Mordin however had concerns. "Could work, however major concern, likely cause explosive decompression through any unsecured bulkheads upon Normandy's departure. Likely cause considerable loss of life on station along with possible damage to Normandy, debris would spread explosively from docking area upon departure."

"Suggest perhaps-" Just as Mordin was about to make a suggestion EDI came up with a plan of her own.

"We could move to another docking bay." She stated, causing all conversations to pause as they considered why the hadn't thought of the idea sooner.

"But what about the active guardian weapon systems?" Asked Jacob.

"Currently powered down, Guardian Defence weapons are automated and networked in order to improve fire rate, hit accuracy and improve overall statistics during combat, I have access to them." EDI said nonchalantly.

"I'll... I'll go and move the Normandy to the nearest docking bay." Said Joker. A barely audible "Clunk" was heard as the Normandy detached from the docking bay and made its way over to the docking bay just over from where they had originally docked.

"Ok, lets try this again shall we?" Miranda asked as she pulled a hand gun from her hip. "Same plan as before, meet up with Shepard, kill anything hostile in our way. Any questions?"

* * *

" **Which way?"** Delta asked as he emerged from the communications room.

"Turn left down the hall and then go through the third door on your right, that will bring you into the armoury for this portion of the ship, you'll need to lock it down or destroy access to the room, manual locks on the room prevent me from taking control, be careful though, I have detected movement in the there, sensors indicate seven to eight people inside." Came EDI's voice, as soon as communications had been re-established EDI had begun directing Delta through purgatory and towards the isolation block where EDI anticipated Jack to be held.

" **Understood."** Delta replied before trudging down the hallway and stopping outside the door. A wave of his hand activated the automatic door and a quick peek showed him just how hostile the hostiles in the room were.

The moment Delta peeked into the armoury bullets started to fly, namely at him, luckily he managed to get himself back away from the door and into relatively good cover in the room behind an ammo crate before his shields dropped. A quick look around the room showed seven blue suns, six Turian's and one human, as well as a sizable amount of weapons of all shapes and sizes in the room, firing on him from across the room from behind a container. Normally he would have known what and who was in a room before he entered it using 'Scout' in order to see what was going on, but with his EVE levels dropping (though he still had the canister he grabbed from the Normandy) he was being... frugal. - _Best to be conservative with it-_ He thought _-might just need it later...-_ especially since he was especially unlikely to find any EVE here.

So instead of using his plasmids Delta grabbed one of his Turrets and threw it deep into the room, managing to land it on the far side of the room on to a counter holding several assault rifles, just behind where the seven Blue Suns were in cover, cover that the turret had rendered almost completely useless.

"Shit, what the hell is going on?" Shouted one of the Blue Suns as he stopped shooting at where Delta had sheltered and dived into new cover as the turret auto focused its fire them. "I thought we were dealing with only one guy?" he shouted as he as he tried to peer around his cover, trying to spot the other 'gunman'.

"Just shoot him! You heard the boss, we get a bonus for each member, dead or alive!" Shouted the obvious leader of the group, as they shot up the ammo crate Delta had managed to huddle behind. Using the distraction his Turret provided and the Blue Suns split fire (several of them were trying to flush out the other 'gunman' by firing everywhere, it wasn't working...), Delta reared up from his cover and started to pick off several of the Blue Suns, ducking down each time his shields began to fail. Not his unusual style of fighting but it worked, though normally his 'style' of fighting included more explosions, several enemies either on fire or electrocuted and a lack of effective cover, still, living as a Big Daddy in Rapture for as many years as he had ingrained a number of useful talents in him, one of which being bloody lethal regardless of the situation.

Using the Turret as support Delta slowly worked his way through the room killing each of the Blue Suns without getting hurt in the process, until one of them got desperate that is.

"GRENADE!" one of them shouted before launching an object across the room.

To Delta it looked like time had slowed down, each second stretching into ten as the explosive object hurtled across the room, caught in between cover as he was left Delta with no safe area to dive behind. This could have and would have ended the lives of any normal solider... luckily however Delta wasn't a solider, he was a Big Daddy and he had several perks that came with being a Big Daddy, namely Plasmids, and now was the time to use them.

He raised his hand and pulled the grenade towards him and flung it back as fast as possible, unlike the grenades back in Rapture, these didn't have a visible fuse, no telling when they'd go off. As it was the grenade didn't make it back to the other side of the room before exploding, leveling the cover the remaining Blue Suns had been using, freeing up Delta to remove the last of the hostiles from the room.

Walking through the wreckage, the scattered guns and wrecked ammo crates Delta surveyed the room, nothing in the room had survived the firefight. So Delta left through the door on the other side of the room, entering the corridor leading to the rest of the ship.

" **Where next?"** He asked EDI after checking the area. After receiving directions he began walking down the corridor to his next destination on the way to the Isolation bay - Mech storage, he had more things to break.

* * *

"Alright EDI, how are we doing?" Shepard asked as they cleared another checkpoint.

"You are closing in on the security booth now, from there you'll be able to release lock down on Jack's cell, however Warden Kuril will be expecting this and will have sent a squad to reinforce the cell, currently Delta is in the Mech bay destroying the Mechs held in reserve, this should reduce the combat efficiency of the Blue Suns by 14%." EDI paused. "Operative Lawson is leading several of the Normandy ground squad to your location, they have been delayed however due to unexpected problems with lobby bulkhead at our original entrance."

"Everything go ok? What happened to the doors?" Shepard asked as watched Garrus gun down a Mech that had been missed earlier.

"Delta used his plasmids to damage the bulkhead control console from the lobby in order to buy the crew more time to prepare, his efforts were unexpectedly overly effective." Stated EDI, Shepard thought about the way she said that, it was as though she considered what he did to be a statistical impossibility.

He was about to ask another question when he was interrupted by a laud crunching noise. Checking his surroundings, he found Garrus was going over several of the Mercenaries, making sure that they were really dead and not just faking it while Grunt was slamming one of the Mechs into the floor and walls by its feet, it was still actively trying to shoot Grunt but the speed it was being thrown around with meant that every shot missed wildly... it would have been rather comical to watch really had it not been so loud.

"You finished?" Shepard asked when the Mech finally stopped firing its gun.

"Heh, Heh, Heh." Grunt grinned as he gave it one last slam against the wall.

"Sorry EDI but what did Delta do to the control console?" Shepard asked now that the noise level had dropped.

"According to my analysis the control console experienced a massive increase in temperature prior to becoming non-functional."

Shepard did see Delta trying to 're-heat' (burn) pizza when they first 'met' (seeing someone in a coma doesn't really count as meeting them).

"He does have a plasmid that allows him to project flames, could be that?" Shepard suggested, not entirely sure what Delta could do, all he had seen him do so far was burn pizza, though he did see the other Big Daddy in Rapture fix a bulkhead with a bolt of lightning.

"Shepard, the temperatures required to inflict that level of damage to the console should have melted his skin and caused a significant level of damage to his body."

Shepard was surprised by that, to be capable of surviving that level of heat would be one thing, but to not get injured by it was something else entirely. "EDI... remind me later to ask Delta what he's fully capable of, I feel he'll have a few surprises to show us."

"Understood Shepard, is there anything else?" EDI asked.

"That's it for now, just let me know when Delta and Miranda is nearby." Shepard said as he swapped heat sinks.

"Understood Commander, logging you out." The Com went dead as the connection got terminated.

"All right, Grunt put down the Mech, Garrus leave the guns alone, we have plenty on the Normandy. Here's the plan." Shepard gathered his squad mates and began to lay down their most effective plan yet. "I'll open the door into the security booth, Grunt you go in first, if it's hostile make it not hostile and then we'll make a new plan from there... sound good?" The simple plans were the good plans, plus these plans were Grunts favorites...

"Ah Commander, if I didn't know better I'd say you were playing favorites." Said Garrus in a jealous voice, though the grin on his face dispelled any notion of jealousy in him.

Shepard raised an eyebrow and grinned. "You can go in first if you want." he suggested, immediately earning a hurt look from Grunt as his face fell, he had been looking forward to charging into the security booth.

"But I wanna go first!" Grunt whined semi-seriously, the smile appearing on his face stretched 'ear to ear' (I think he has those, right?) as he envisioned the chaos he could cause in there..

Garrus held up his hands in mock surrender. "You can go first." He laughed.

"Heh, Heh, Heh." During this conversation they had made their way to the door in question, now all they had to do is open the door and open Jacks cell. Easy task right? Nope... Warden Kuril had been expecting this unfortunately.

The moment Shepard overrode the door (good job he took those lessons from Tali) a twin barreled turret descended from the ceiling just inside the room and began to fire upon the trio as they attempted to get into the room. Grunt didn't even get his opportunity to rush into the room as a concussive shot from one of the guards shoulder checked him and spun him enough that he actually charged into the door frame before bouncing off the wall next to Shepard.

"OK." Shouted Shepard, trying to be heard over the sound of the turret as it fired at them. "New plan, Garrus overload on the turret, then lay covering fire on anything moving! Grunt, charge in there, focus on the guards, I'll take care of the turret, sound good?" Judging by the smiles Garrus amd Grunt they approved. "All right, move!"

The trio leaped into action, Garrus launched a wide range Overload, trying to disable as much as possible as well as the turret, luckily the shields on the turret were weak enough that the overload managed to temporarily disable it. As soon as that was done Grunt charged in, shotgun roaring away at the guards as they tried and failed to return fire, Shepard meanwhile started to permanently disable the temporarily disabled turret, if he could just... access the... maintenance hatch... before it reactivated... gotcha!

The hatch swung open revealing a mess of circuitry that had been hidden inside the turret, a few crossed wires and even a few bullets in the right places and the turret was officially permanently disabled, with one problem down Shepard turned to see how his squad mates were doing.

All the guards in the room were down and out, Garrus and Grunt had seen to that with their well honed combat skills, the only problem next would be to find Jacks cell, release the lock on the door and then explain the situation and hopefully have an extremely powerful biotic to help out in their endeavor.

"Ah Shepard? We may have a bit of a problem..." Garrus said as he checked over the computer systems.

Shepard could see what the problem was, Garrus's overload knocked out the turret all well and good but it also caused some issues with the other systems in the room... namely cell control.

"Ok, so what's the news, good or bad?" Asked Shepard as Garrus ran his Omni-tool over the computer systems.

"There's good news... but mostly bad. The good news is that we can still open Jack's cell, the bad news is... it'll open all the cells." Garrus said after looking at the scans his Omni-tool made.

"What about the safety locks to prevent this from happening?" This was a standard thing in almost every prison, it was anyone's nightmare to be in a prison were every prisoner got out at the same time...

"Never implemented, looks like the Blue Suns cut a lot of corners when they refurbished this place." Garrus shook his head, if it wasn't for the fact that the prison was in space with no where for the prisoners to go if they did manage to escape, then Purgatory would have suffered multiple breakouts on a regular basis. It was a nightmare waiting to happen... one that could very well happen today.

"Ok... Miranda? Delta?" Shepard called on his com. "How close are you to meeting up with us?"

Miranda answered first. "We're two corridors over from your position, we should be there in two-three minutes."

"Awesome... We may have a situation here, Delta, how far out are you?"

" **Still finishing up in Mech storage,** **twen** **t** **y minutes yet.** " Came Delta's electronic 'voice'.

"Ok, that's fine. Joker? What's the situation on the Normandy?" He Asked.

"All good so far Commander, I don't think the Warden has even realised that we've moved to a different dock yet." Came Jokers voiceover the com. "Also I think I may have managed to annoy the Warden a little." Joker laughed before continuing. "They can't get through the Dock bulkheads because Delta literally fried them and they can't get a visual on the Normandy either because EDI managed to activate several security shutters so they still think we're parked there."

"Good work EDI, Miranda, take your squad and head down to Jacks cell, according to the information here Jack's cell is in insolation block C, cell A6. The Blue Suns systems here got messed up so you'll have to stop any other prisoner from escaping when we open Jack's cell, clear?"

"Yes Commander, heading there now."

"Alright once you're there let us know and we'll pop the cell door, grab Jack and leave." Shepard checked out the console, making sure he had the right command ready.

"Ready." came Miranda's voice a few minutes later.

"Alright I'm opening the door now, this'll set off all the other doors too so make sure you're ready for anything, and Zaeed? Don't shoot too many of them." Said Shepard as he sent the command to unlock the door. Zaeed just grumbled as all the doors surrounding them began to open, many of the prisoners were confused as to why the doors were opening, though none more so than the prisoner occupying cell C-A6.

"Jack, we're here to get you out-" Started Miranda before the prisoner interrupted.

"Hey! The names Beth, bitch, who the fuck are you?" Said the prisoner as she left her cell.

"Shepard! Just looked through the cell history, Jack was supposedly moved here a few minutes after the warden tried to trap us, Kuril switched the cell data!" Said Garrus as he searched through the data after that unexpected revelation.

-Meanwhile in cell D-A6-

She could feel herself coming around and waking up as the cold began to recede, she was still numb of course, but she was slowly fighting off the effects of enforced cryogenic stasis, not pleasant for anyone but less so for her due to the 'enforced' part of it. Though that didn't stop her from releasing a massive biotic blast the moment she could, freeing her of the shackles that held her in place.

She could see shapes in the background, her eyes not having fully recovered yet couldn't see anything more than blurry, inky shadows, but the shear size of those shadows told her that they were Mechs, big ones too, never stopped her before. Another biotic blast was unleashed, followed by the robotic wreckage of the Mechs.

"Ah my head!" She said as the headache hit her like a steam train straight off the tracks, she shook her head and focused, she had to get back what was hers and there's only one place it could be, Evidence lock up, time to get back what was hers.

* * *

A massive crash, followed by several Blue Suns being flung against a wall attracted Miranda's attention, the next thing she saw was the target of their 'break-out' running off deeper into the ship.

"Found her! She's running!" Shouted Miranda as she gunned down several guards who were in the way.

"What?!" Shepard asked from the security booth. "Why?"

"No idea but it looks like she's heading to storage or Evidence lock up. Might be looking for her belongings from when she got caught." Answered Miranda.

"Wait, Jack's a chick? When did that happen?" Garrus asked as he Shepard and Grunt moved out of the security booth and down the hallway to catch up to Miranda.

"Did you not read the Dossier? All the information was there!" Miranda shouted as she vaulted a security barrier in her attempts to catch up with Jack.

"No? Was I supposed to?" Answered Garrus as alarms began to sound, signaling the release of all the prisoners.

"No but Shepard should have!"

"I was busy getting over the fact I was dead and then not dead! I... I viewed the important bits!" Said Shepard, defending himself from potential blow back from not reading the dossier's...

"Just get moving! Jack's laying waste to everything here!" Miranda vaulted another security barrier. "Did they not think to disable her biotic Amp?" She said as she dodged a piece of debris. So far Jack had trashed the security team stationed outside her cell, the three YMIR Mechs inside her cell and was now on a rampage through Purgatory, all the while shouting obscenities at anything trying to get in her way, operative word being 'try', they were very unsuccessful.

"Delta, where are you? The entire ship is falling apart!" Shepard shouted into his com, trying to find what had happened to the oldest crew member.

" **Two corridors over, EDI found a short cut through to where Jack is going.** " Replied Delta as he dived through the next doorway, avoiding the debris falling around him.

"Perfect, just catch up to her and keep her safe, ok? Don't engage in a fight with her unless she endangers you or the Normandy! Clear?" A few seconds passed with no answer, just as he was about to ask if Delta had heard him someone else appeared on the line.

"Shepard, I've been meaning to talk to you for a few minutes now, it took my specialists a few minutes longer to access your com frequency than I anticipated." It was Kuril. "You see Shepard, Jack is only useful to me alive, you on the other hand are more useful to me alive but are still valuable to me dead. My men will catch Jack in a few minutes but in the mean time you at going to be occupied with me the room ahead." Kuril was annoying but Shepard was wondering why he had chosen to speak rather than let Shepard walk into an ambush.

"And why would I be 'occupied' with you Kuril? Got something I want?" Shepard asked as he, Garrus and Grunt raced down the hallway whilst dodging debris.

"Not something you want... more like something you need. Did you not want to know how the Collectors contacted me with the deal for you?" Kuril said over the com.

Shepard grunted in frustration, of all the things they need to know and Kuril had it, though it still doesn't explain why Kuril had spoken to them unless... Shepard then had an idea as to why Kuril contacted them. "Your ambush isn't anywhere near our position is it?"

There was a few moments of embarrassed silence before Kuril came back on the com. "Here are the co-ordinates to my position, if you want the information, well... you'll have to come and get it." After that the com cut out leaving Shepard alone with his thoughts. It was a trap, no two ways about it but if Kuril had that information it might be worth it. But still it was going to be a trap...

"It's worth it Battlemaster." Said Grunt who had been silent since the security booth turret fiasco. "We need it, they have it. If they don't? We make them regret saying they had it." Said Grunt as he slammed his fists together and judging from Garrus's nodding he too agreed.

"Alright, we'll go and see what kind of ambush he has ready for us, Garrus try and see if you can get com's back up with the Normandy, just in case we need an extraction. Grunt you-" Grunt looked at Shepard with hope filled eyes. "Just get ready to lay down an ass beating on anyone in the way, ok?"

"Heh, Heh, Heh." Grunt had an extra 'spring' in his step as they moved down the hallway towards the anticipated ambush, fun times ahead Shepard thought as they closed in on Kuril's co-ordinates.

* * *

Meanwhile Miranda was just about to catch up to the destructive menace when she and her team walked into an isolation zone, immediately bulkheads slammed into place, sealing her and her team in a corridor, leaving them to watch a Jack got further and further away from them.

"Damn it!" Growled Miranda as she slammed a biotically charged fist into the door. "Kasumi, get this door open!"

The kleptomaniac de-clocked behind Miranda and immediately started to run her Omni-tool over the door. "Hum... that warden Kuril is good, this isolation point is well secured." She mused as she read through the information her Omni-tool had found. "Buuuut... I'm better." She said playfully as she sent a command with her Omni-tool and slowly, inch by inch the bulkhead door in front of them began to open.

"Damn it she's getting away." Said Miranda in frustration as Jack disappeared into the storage room and then back out and heading to the docks. "Delta, can you get to her?" she questioned over the com.

" **Not right now, too far away, EDI's redirecting me to the docks, should make contact there.** " He replied.

"Understood, we'll double round and meet you there, Shepard?" She called. Nothing. "Dammit Shepard, this is not the time to go off com!" She turned back to Zaeed and Kasumi. "Alright, we'll double back and secure Jack and then go and pull Shepard out of what ever trouble he's in now."

"Lets bloody well go then, no point standing here like bloody lemons." Zaeed stomped off back the way they came and towards the Docking bay with Kasumi following, - _What did I do to deserve this-_ Miranda thought as she stalked off after them.

* * *

Jack meanwhile had just managed to get to just before the lobby where Delta had set up his 'lobby reception' when she ran into an isolation zone, immediately security bulkheads slammed shut, preventing Jack from going anywhere.

"LET ME OUT OF THIS YOU FUCKS!" Shouted Jack as she pounded on the far bulkhead door. "When I get out you're all dead! You hear me? Dead!"

While Jack was letting out her frustrations on the bulkhead squads Golf, Hotel, Kilo and Tango all emerged from the Communications room behind her, these were the squads Warden Kuril had tasked with sorting out whoever had hijacked the com line in the Communications room, of course by the time they had gotten there Delta had already moved on, instead they had stumble upon the kill zone he had set up earlier. Their losses were considerable until they used a overload on the room to take out the turrets, and now they had her in their sights.

"Subject Zero! Get down on the ground or we'll open fire!" One of the guards shouted after the others spread through the room and got behind cover, normally when confronting Jack they'd use tranquilizers and gas grenades to knock her out, unluckily for them however, they hadn't brought any of that.

"So you're the fucks that locked the door, either unlock the door or become red smudges on the w-" before she could say much more however her headache from cryogenic stasis earlier flared up, momentarily distracting her.

With no Biotic's to rely on and no shield unit in her clothing one of the guards took his chances to put a bullet in her leg and attempt to subdue Jack, Kuril wanted her alive after all. Just as he adjusted the position of his gun to fire on her, he found himself with a compelling reason not to fire upon her, instead he pulled his trigger while pointing his gun at the individual who had just entered the room through a maintenance tunnel.

Delta had found Jack.

* * *

One glimpse of the room told Delta all he needed, it was time to play as his original role as a Big Daddy. In fact he was struck by just how familiar this was, the corridor looked similar to some of those found in Rapture and his current task reminded him in many ways of how he protected Eleanor from the Splicers of Rapture, only this time he was protecting Jack from the guards of Purgatory.

His shields flared from gun fire as he dived in front of Jack, he grabbed her around the waist as she struggled feebly against him and pulled her over to cover, making sure to position himself between her and the mass accelerated rounds coming their way.

Using the predictive message function on his Omni-tool for the first time he 'spoke' to her as he fired back at the guards.

" **Stay down/ I'm here to help/ don't move.** " It wasn't an amazing function but it usefully allowed him to speak without tying up his hands with typing. " **Recover/ I'll eliminate hostiles."**

Jack was slowly recovering from her headache when she heard him speak, from her prone position on the floor she saw him clamber over the cover he had put them behind before really letting go against the remaining guards. She saw the lightning bolts rip from his hands, spearing their way through the various guards, small whirlwinds would pop up out of no where, throwing guards around the room and she saw the strangest thing, when one of the lightning bolts he threw actually seemed to charge one of the whirlwinds sending short sparks of lightning at anyone who came near. Jack remembered some of the stories her mother used to tell her before bed... about monsters and knights under the ocean.

After a few minutes Jack recovered enough to get up and look around, the level of damage was incredible, scorch marks everywhere, on the bodies, their guns, even against the walls, seventeen guards in total littered on the ground, some showed signs of being electrocuted, others had burn marks on them while a few had bullet holes in them.

Delta turned around to see Miranda's squad on the other side of the Isolation point, mouths agape. They had made it back in time to see Delta go to town on the guards whilst protecting Jack and to say the least, they were impressed.

"So what's a Big Daddy like you doing all the way out here in space? I thought you'd still be in Rapture." asked Jack once she remembered what her mother called them.

Delta and Miranda's squad turned to look at her, unsure how she knew about Big Daddy's and Rapture, though that question was answered once Jack got a look at the symbol on Deltas hand. Once Jack saw it her eye's grew wide as she recognised it, her next words however shocked everyone present.

"Wait you're Delta, you're my grandfather?" She asked in stunned disbelief.

" **What?/"**

Just then Shepard jogged round the corner and to meet back up with Miranda's squad having dealt with Kuril. "Hey guys. What'd I miss?"

* * *

Did any of you like the twist? More information about Jacks past will be revealed... in due time! I'll see you guys next month with the newest chapter! Next week's chapter may be a little late with me being on holiday but finger crossed I'll be on time! See you all next month!


	8. Chapter 8 Three Explainations

Alright guys sorry for the delay! Anyway so here's this months Chapter, it took its time but I managed to get it done! So enjoy this month's chapter!

If you see anything that doesn't quite make sense just let me know and I'll sort it out!

So once again with the blanket statement that I own nothing and have nothing to do with Bioware the creators of Mass Effect or Irrational the creators of Bioshock, with nothing left to mention I say onwards with the story once more!

* * *

Chapter 8 The Three Explanations

"Ok hey, wonderful, Jack meet Delta, Delta meet Jack, right can we get onto the Normandy, please?" Shepard looked over his shoulder to check down the hallway. "Look, Kuril said he had information, he didn't, what he had was an open video communication with one of the Blue Suns division heads, ok? And we may have killed him in the fight and now the Blue suns are now gunning for us and may be in system within the next hour so can we please get moving?" Asked Shepard with a hopeful look on his face.

Everyone else just stared at Jack, ignoring the Commander, still shocked by Jacks outburst, _Grandfather_? The Crazy Biotic serial killer, kidnapper, arsonist just asked if Delta, two hundred year old Delta, found two thousand meters under the sea, was her grandfather... _-today is going to be a very interesting day-_ thought many of the Normandy's squad members.

"Guys?" Shepard asked as everyone was still ignoring him. "Ah... we need to move?"

"He's right, as much as I hate sayin it, but the blue suns probably wont let this go." Said Zaeed as he began walking his way to the docking tube and subsequently, the Normandy. "Might as well get moving, they'll either cut Kuril off as a idiot, not hard now he's dead, and recoup their losses, i.e. getting Purgatory back or they'll look to get even."

"Either ways not good so lets get out of this system and consider our next moves, Miranda?" Shepard turned to Miranda who was still staring at Jack, who in turn was talking animatedly to Delta about something. "Miranda?"

Miranda shook her head and turned to the Commander as the squad began making their way back onto the Normandy. "Yes Shepard?"

"I need you to get Jack some standard equipment sorted for her, at least until we can go to either Omega or the Citadel for resupply. And..." Shepard paused as he looked at Jack and Delta. "See if you can find out what happened to her." Another pause from Shepard. " And also why is she so attached to Delta?"

(Thanks Anonschmanon, reading your comment gave me the idea to put it in!)

"It turns out... that Jack is Deltas grandfather..." Said Miranda.

Shepard looked at her before smiling. "Really? She only looks around twenty-five."

"You know what I mean. Hopefully we'll know more once you debriefed her."

"Hope so." Said Shepard as he and his squad mates began to board the Normandy, _-The de-briefing will be very interesting one too-_ he thought.

* * *

"Ok, where shall we start?" Asked Shepard once he, Miranda, Delta and Jack were stood in the Conference room.

"All right, I'll start. Why the hell is Cerberus after me? Again?" Jack started off by demanding answers, which was fairly understandable considering they just executed a prison break in order to get her out and hadn't told her anything yet. "And where the hell did you find my Grandfather?" That however, was a question that really begged answers, from her though, and along the subject heading of 'How did you know about Delta?' and 'How the hell are you related to him?'. Important questions.

"Ok-" Shepard started first. "-lets start with your first question, Cerberus doesn't want you, I'm building a team to fight the Collectors, I'm the one who wants you on it." Seeing as how Jack still looked pissed, that answer wasn't good enough for her. "Look, the Collectors are abducting humans from all over the Terminus systems, whole colonies vanishing over night as if everyone just got up from dinner and left. There's no evidence and the council won't help because its in the Terminus systems, can't risk starting a war with the Terminus systems just over some humans can they?" Shepard added angrily to himself. Politics with the Council was a combination of 'Don't rock the boat' and 'Don't upset your neighbours _too_ much', though normally that involved the Council turning a blind eye to Batarian slavery just to keep the 'status quo'.

"So?" Jack asked, clearly not interested. "That doesn't mean much to me." She looked at Delta, a shrewd look appeared on her face. "But... I could be persuaded to help..."

" **I'd rather you didn't."** Delta said, his face looked as if it was set in stone.

"What! Why not!" Jack almost screamed at him when he said this, much to Shepard and Miranda's surprise.

" **You're my granddaughter."** Delta let this sink in a moment before continuing. **"Not only that, you're the one relative I know for certain is still alive and I intend to keep you that way."** Delta had a rueful smile on his face as he looked at his granddaughter. " **I couldn't protect your mother properly when she was a child-"** Delta recalled the day he died, unable to do anything, all control ripped away... leaving him as a puppet to the puppet master, forcing him to point that gun at his head, leaving him unable to protect her. **"- but I can keep you safe."** He smiled at her. " **You're not the grandchild I was expecting, you're just like your mother there-"** Jack turned away from Delta at that statement, just to hide how red she had gone when Delta compared her to her mother. **"but you're my granddaughter, who I intend to keep safe."**

Shepard scratched his head, this was going to make this awkward, the squad was clearly missing a biotic specialist but if Delta continued they wouldn't have one, he needed to change the subject... quickly. "If you don't mind me interrupting, but earlier you asked why Cerberus was after you _again._ Can you tell us a bit about that?"

At the mere mention of 'Cerberus' Jacks expression changed from proud to rage as anger swiftly clouded her face. "Cerberus?" She hissed. "They bought me and some other kids off some Batarian slavers when I was a little kid, I thought I had been saved but instead the fucks tortured us for years... trying to increase my already substantial biotics and trying to make the other kids biotic too though Eezo exposure." She took a breath to calm herself. "Once they found that that didn't work, they brought biotic kids into the project, trying to make them like me, they'd make us fight using nothing but biotics, they'd shock us with control collars if we didn't fight and give us drugs when we did. It didn't make us all that much stronger, some of the kids flourished in the arena though but regardless the kids hated me for it, because I was the reason they had been taken from their homes. I was the reason they got tortured and experimented on, day in, day out. They _hated_ me..."

Nobody said anything, Miranda looked away awkwardly, understandable really with her past and current relationship with Cerberus, Shepard started to add more to his list of things he didn't like about Cerberus and Delta... Delta held himself still, desperately trying to control the rage burning inside of him...

Another family member, hurt, experimented on, tortured, for what? A better biotic? A better fighter? One way or another, if Delta ever met The Illusive Man there would be bodies.

" **Jack... why don't you start at the beginning?"** Asked Delta, in as much to distract Jack from dwelling on the bad memories to sating his own curiosity of the years he missed with his daughter and granddaughter.

She took a breath and let it out... and then promptly slammed her hand into the table... leaving a similar sized dent next to the one Miranda left the other day, obviously still slightly upset.

"Ok..." She started, after another deep breath. "Well, me, mom and Alicia used to move around a lot... I don't remember much but it felt like we'd only settle on a colony for only a few months before leaving again." Jack closed her eyes, reliving moments from the past. "Each time we'd do the same stuff, mum would go out for the first week we were there just doing research and stuff, that's why we had Alicia with us, she would teach me and look after me while mum was away. And when mum came back she'd bring gifts for me and Alicia, she'd always apologise for leaving us on our own... she liked to bring back sea shells and cool rocks." Jack smiled as the memory came to her, her mother graciously gifting her with a rock that shone so many different colours... before playing their favorite game of 'Chase the Fishy'... as a six year old Jack loved it, both Eleanor and Alicia trying to chase a hyperactive six year old with budding biotics... Delta smiled when Jack mentioned this.

"And then we'd have a holiday as such... but one day we landed on this colony... back end of no where if you'd believe me." Jack paused in thought. "You know I think that was the first time I ever saw a Volus, he got so angry when I called him a bowling ball..." Miranda unintentionally giggled at Jacks childhood when she heard her say that.

"Shut up cheerleader." Jack shot at her, more out of embarrassment than malice.

"Girls, c'mon behave." Said Shepard just as Miranda was about to reply.

"Anyway-" Said Jack as she stared pointedly at Miranda, almost daring her to laugh or giggle again. "- as I was saying, we landed on this one colony and yes there was an angry bowling ball shaped Volus..." She squinted at Miranda, searching for even a hint of a smile before turning sober and continuing with her story. "-but it was there that things went... _wrong_...mom did her usual, scouted round the colony gathering data on who knows what... rushed off to do research, but as soon as she got back she got a message from a friend."

She paused a moment before continuing. "She left the colony after making me promise to stay with Alicia and to behave while she was gone." She laughed, but it was a sad laugh, filled with regret. "But a week after she left the colony it was hit by a Batarian slave raid." It had been quiet in the room while they listened to Jacks story, but the moment she said that it was as if someone had pulled a blanket over the entire universe, silencing even the quiet hum of the Normandy's engines.

"The colony didn't have a chance in hell, no surface to air defences, no military presence, even the distress beacon didn't work right... but it still took the Batarians several days to subdue the colony-" She said with pride. "-rather than the afternoon they thought it would take... though that was mostly due to the few policemen on the colony and Alicia and the Volus guy... who knew he was a biotic? Eventually everyone got captured... but they had to make an example..." Jack grew quiet as the memories began to over come her, regret and shame breaking through into her voice as she described what happened next. "They made us watch as one by one they put a gun to everyone who protected us and pulled the trigger... Alicia... she never stopped talking to me, reassuring that everything would be alright... even when they lined up the gun to her head..." Jack didn't say anything to object as Delta enfolded her into a hug, she didn't cry, weep or show any signs of breaking down... she just lent against Delta, her eyes blankly gazing into the distance, drowned in her memories of the past as Delta gently rocked her back and forth.

Shepard didn't know what to say, Delta actually started to look his age, gone was the bruised and scarred man who fought through a city filled with enemies to save his daughter and in his place was a grandfather, trying desperately to comfort his granddaughter. After seeing that Shepard turned to Jack only to see another change there, gone was the hardened criminal who was wanted for a multitude of crimes and in her place was a twenty-something girl who's lost so much that she should be in therapy, not prison.

Jack blinked, the blank gaze in her eyes faded as looked around the room, and then she went beet red when she realised she was still being rocked in Delta's arms...

"Hey, Hey! I'm ok!" She almost shouted, jumping out of the hug Delta had enfolded her in. "Jeez, I-I'm fine." She looked at Miranda, promising all sorts of horrible stuff if she said anything. She shook her head. "Anyway, after that they put collars on us and loaded us into a shuttle, three to four of us per cage... I... I don't remember much after that, but the next thing I do remember is waking up in a shipping container with a bunch of other kids, at first th scientists there told us it was an Alliance rehabilitation centre.. they did a load of tests on us... to see what our mental state was like and what our biotic capabilities were to... once they figured it out that I was the strongest even without a biotic amp they started to show their true colours... the other 'tests' began later that week, seeing what the could do to make us stronger, faster... better."

She sighed. "When that didn't work they started to try and train us, that didn't go down so well with the rest of us so we demanded to go home... and then they got the shock collars out. That's when the torture began for all of us, either pumping us full of drugs or fucking around with our bodies, lowering our core temperature, exposing us to ultra sonic frequencies, basically throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, only I was the control group... Subject fucking Zero... they'd test the dangerous stuff out on the others first... see if it did anything and then if it worked they'd use it on me."

BANG

Another dent in the table, it was starting to get a collection of them. - _I hope those dent's don't mess up the com-link to Cerberus_ \- Thought Shepard as he looked at how deep the dent went...

"Of course it didn't work on me, cause I'm different from the run of the mill biotic... so in the end the other kids died for nothing..."

This got Miranda's attention. "Wait you're different? How different?" She asked.

Jack looked at Delta before nodding to herself and looking back to Shepard. "Yeah... I don't have a biotic amp, when I was four mum found me playing with a frying pan, I was lowering its weight and throwing it as high as I could, great fun as a kid, only the biotics nodes didn't form right in my nerve clusters... several scans later and they found out I had stage four biotic tumours growing on my organs. I didn't think much of it at the time but I found out later from the other kids that that's terminal, still that didn't stop mum from fixing me."

She paused in thought, once more delving deep into her memories. " Even now I remember the sensation of space being... _distorted_ around me after she gave me the injection. And no-" Jack held up her hand, forestalling Miranda's question. "-I don't know how she did it, all I knew is that I didn't get tired that easily then and now my natural biotics are on the same level as an Asari Matriarchs who has an amp."

Shepard whistled in surprise, Asari Matriarchs are famed as the best biotic users in the galaxy, no exceptions, Krogan's came second and all the other races kinda just bounced around the bottom line, some getting better biotics when they come up with a new amp based on their species but aside from that everyone else was stuck in third place in the biotics scale...

" **Adam."** Delta typed, startling everyone. " **It's the only thing that would make sense, that sensation, distorted space? Each plasmid gives you a different sensation, Electro Bolt feels like lightning channeling it's way through your nervous system while Winter Blast feels like frost-bite... only everywhere, each one has it's own distinct feeling."**

"...How many plasmids did you take in Rapture?" Asked Shepard.

" **Too many, only thing keeping me together was the treatment I went through to become a Big Daddy."**

Shepard nodded, even with the records they managed to get from Rapture they had no real idea what process a person goes through to become a Big Daddy, they had some clue's from the condition they found Delta in but aside from that there was nothing else, either the information was never recorded in Rapture, it was kept in a different area or it was deleted. "Fair enough, Know any more about this Adam? It's got Mordin bouncing off the walls since we found a sample in the mini-armoury just off the room from your medical bay in Rapture."

Delta started to type away on his Omni-tool. **"I know some information from the files Eleanor left for me."** Delta said in his slightly monotone, computerised voice. " **I'll go over it after Jack finishes, it might shed some more light on what happened to Rapture."**

Shepard nodded in agreement, no point getting distracted from the main point of this conversation, though Jacks dossier will get massively expanded upon by their resident psychologist.

"Anyway... I... I think I was there for a couple of years, the first round of experiments didn't improve my biotics but it did impact on the other kids they had kidnapped, so Cerberus tried to get them to my standard, so Cerberus started to use me as target practice in the arena to test the kids capabilities." Jack shrugged wen everyone stared at her. "They shot us full of drugs and kept shocking us with shock collars until we fought, either ending with someone dead or unconscious, I- I don't remember it all that well because of the drugs but... but I know I killed, the other kids hated me even more then but the researchers all thought it was great, I didn't sleep for three weeks after that... sometimes-" She gulped, almost afraid to continue. "-sometimes I can still hear the guards chanting, telling us to kill, encouraging it..."

She shivered but shook her head at Delta when he tried to fold her into a hug again. "Anyway-" She went on. "because of that I started to get really good at using my biotics... eventually I over heard the guards talking about a shipment of supplies coming later that day. That night I smashed the glass window in my room, once the guard came in to investigate I threw the desk at him using my biotics, grabbed his gun and ran... I set off a load of alarms on the way out though, I must have had every guard in the facility trying to stop me... and of course in the process of my escape I hit the control centre and opened every door in the complex."

She had a bloodthirsty grin on her face at this point. "The smart kids of the group knew what to do, they started to go around the facility in packs, killing anyone wearing Cerberus colours. After a while I made it to the shuttle bay... I don't remember what happened next though... one minute I'm in the middle of an escape and the next I find myself waking up in an Alliance medical facility, a real one tis time, I panicked and ran." She looked up from the table to see raised eyebrows on everyone. "What? I didn't know who they were! Just lucky I didn't kill anyone." She muttered. "Anyway a few days later a street gang found me and I ended up running with them for a while... after that, well you probably know."

"Sounds familiar, used to run in a gang myself when I was a kid." Mused Shepard absentmindedly as he wrote some of Jack history on his Omni-tool. The room fell silent.

"What?" Jack asked, wondering how the famous Commander Shepard, ended up in a gang.

"Huh?" Shepard looked up from his Omni-tool.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no! You can't brush it off that easy! Spill! I told my story, your turn." Said Jack looking pointedly at the Commander.

"Wait, what?" Asked Shepard, clearly confused about was going on.

"About what you just said! About you being in a gang!"

"Oh... maybe next time."

THUD

"Now." Said Jack, her fist embedded in dent number four.

"You know Commander, you don't say much about you're past... and Jack did share her story..." Miranda eagerly said while Delta nodded beside Jack, there was no way the Commander was getting out of this.

"Alright, alright." Shepard held his hands up in defeat. "Ok... so what _do_ you know about me?"

Miranda started. "Earth born, no information on family nor any history before your eighteenth birthday were you signed up with the military, from there its all on either public record of your service history like what happened at Akuze or classified since you became a N7 operative and further classified with admittedly heavy encryption since you became a Spector." Everyone looked at her in surprise. "What? I studied your records intently to make sure we brought back the real you, with all your memories and skills intact."

"Oh... ok, so just my childhood, yeah?" After getting several nods from the other three occupants of the room Shepard began his story. "Ok, so I was born to one Hannah Shepard, never really knew my father, but then again I didn't really know my mother really either, I was only two when they died." He sighed. "But I do know that my mother met him in the military, from what I've been told he was a marine who had a fling with my mother, but when they found out she was pregnant, well... they had a shotgun wedding, really nice one too apparently. Anyway, moving ahead a few years my parents took me to a local hospital for a checkup, I had a reaction to some Eezo exposure so they wanted to get me checked out."

Shepard paused as he tapped away at his Omni-tool, a small 'Ping' and a moment later he displayed a news article on his Omni-tool. "Ah here it is, does anyone remember the terrorist attack on Oaken Park hospital in London? Where they blew up one of the wards? That's where we were that day, the bomb had taken out the lower floors of the building but it had severely damaged the structural integrity of the building, firefighters were evacuating the building but before they could get everyone out the building collapsed..." Shepard fell silent, letting the people in the room absorb the information.

"I had heard about it, but I heard that a small unknown group claimed responsibility for the attack but disappeared a few months later." Said Miranda as she too began typing away at her Omni-tool. "All the evidence found was CCTV footage showing an individual carrying the bomb in a rucksack into the reception area before the bomb went off as he or she removed it, there was nothing left of the body for forensics to identify the individual..."

"Shit Shepard, who knew..." Said Jack.

"Yeah well that was just the start... ever heard of the 'Tenth street reds'?" Jack perked up at this name.

"Yeah! I met a few of those idiot racists on Omega one time! They tried to recruit me, said that my biotics were meant to be used on and I quote 'Xeno's', never met a group of idiots like that before, I almost did Aria a favour by killing them but it's more fun to annoy her so I left them alive... I left them with a few bruises and a lot of broken bones... but I didn't kill them!" She added quickly when she saw Delta looking at her disapprovingly.

"That's the guys, they were only just starting back then, no more than twenty or so members, anyway almost immediately after the building collapsed they started to scavenge for equipment and supplies... they also found two year old me, wrapped in the arms of my parents, they managed to protect me from most of the rubble and the main collapse of the building but... they didn't survive.

But the gang were all for either leaving me there or for holding me for ransom to any surviving family, in the end one of the older members of the group, a girl called Fez just made me an honorary member of the gang, I was a courier for the group, take this parcel to this address, tell this 'guy' in this 'gang' that the deal was going ahead.. stuff like that."

"Jeez, that's a shit life for a two year old to have." said Jack.

"I can't really complain compared to yours though, it was hard work and it got me in more than enough trouble with the gang when I refused to do anything involving violence but it kept me off the streets, Fez helped quite a bit there actually, she had an old tree house in the park near the gangs main HQ that she let me sleep in." Said Shepard with a faint smile on his face. "So that was my life for like... four years? Maybe five... and one day, a woman called Maria pops up in the area asking questions about me, anyway the Tenth street reds didn't like someone butting in on their business, especially when that person is asking questions about their 'bestest little courier' yet. So they decide to lure this woman in and ask her a few questions of their own, on their own terms if you catch my meaning." Seeing all three people nodding in understanding, Shepard continued on with his story.

"So one of them posed as a 'concerned citizen' and told her that he had information on me, so he tells her about the old tree house I slept at and stayed if there was nothing to do, of course this is just bait to get her away from any witnesses so they can ask their questions.

So she gets there an hour or so later only to find herself surrounded by eight of the Tenth street reds, all armed with steel pipes they managed to get from a construction site and me who had been tied up and left at the base of the bloody tree, all so they could 'Educate' as to what would happen to me unless I cooperated in the more violent aspects of the gang." Shepard started smiling as he told the next bit.

"As soon as she go to the old park she knew it was a trap, but she still kept walking, even when they started to surround her she didn't seem the slightest bit worried, instead she ignored everyone else and looked at me and smiled, 'So this is where you've been all these years.' she said."

"Turns out she was my aunt and that she'd been looking for me since just after the attack at the hospital." Shepard looked at the stunned faces of Miranda, Delta and Jack. "Yeah and it was at this point the Tenth street reds tried to attack her, emphasis on the 'tried', they didn't get very far before she had both disarmed all of them and made sure they wouldn't be getting for a good while at least."

"Damn! She sounds badass!" Said Jack whilst nodding approvingly.

"Well she was N3, it really didn't take her much effort. After that she untied me and asked if I wanted to go home." Shepard shrugged. "I said yes. Roll on a couple of years and she'd officially adopted me, I was her son in all but blood but even that was pretty close considering she was my aunt, she was the one who told me what happened to my parents, she even went and told me why it took so long for her to find me, she'd been hunting down the group who carried out the attack while thinking we had all died in the attack, couple of months after she'd finished putting them down she found out that whilst my parents bodies had been found - mine hadn't, that's when she took up the search, hoping that I was still alive. A few more years after that I joined the military like everyone else in my family, she was so proud the day I finally told her I was N7." Shepard smiled at the memory. "And well, you know the rest."

" **It seems like you've lead an interesting life Commander."** Typed Delta.

"Sure have, though considering the squad members we have on the Normandy no one has had a 'normal' life have they? Anyway back to the main point, Delta I know you're against this but we need Jack on the team, look you know how serious this is we have no biotic specialists and without one we aren't going to get far when we go up against the Collectors." Asked Shepard.

Delta sighed, Jack was looking at him with hope filled eyes, just begging to be released upon the galaxy with something destructive in mind. " **Fine, but I'm not taking the blame when we find your mother and she asks what you've been up to but-"** Delta held up his hand to forestall Jack's 'Woop!' of success. **"- You're not wearing that."**

"What? What's wrong with what I'm wearing? Demanded Jack.

 **"Do you want your mother to see what your wearing?"**

Jack was about to answer when she took a moment to actually think about what it was that she was wearing... and what precisely her mother would say when they finally found her. "Alright I get your point, but I'm choosing my wardrobe!"

Shepard smiled, that was one part of the equation, now to solve the other half they needed to know what Jack wanted in exchange for working with them.

"So Jack, you mentioned you could be persuaded to help us, what are you thinking?" Asked Shepard.

Jack didn't even hesitate. "Access to Cerberus files, help with finding my mother and a really, really big bomb."

"What?" Butted in Miranda. "Why the hell should we give you those files!"

"I want to drop the bomb on the place that tortured me all those years ago."

 **"I'm with Jack on this."**

"That... I can understand." Conceded Miranda after some hesitation, obviously finding out how Cerberus had already betrayed her trust once already had impacted on _her_ trust with the organisation.

Shepard nodded. "Miranda, if you can get Jack file access once we're finished here and some more... appropriate armour and clothing for on the Normandy."

"I'm not wearing Cerberus colours!" started Jack. "I want nothing to do with them! And I want a chair in here! I'm not standing around for hours on end again!"

"Ok fine! Maybe Kelly has some civilian clothes you can borrow until we get to Omega or the Citadel... though having chairs in here doesn't sound like a bad idea..."

* * *

A few minutes later and Jack and Miranda had finished their rather vocal... _discussion_ on clothing choices for on and off the Normandy, so Shepard decided to bring the meeting to a close.

"So have we covered everything then?"

Delta shook his head. **"Not yet, you were asking questions about Adam earlier, still want to hear?"** With everyone nodding in interest Delta began to tell them what he knew and what he'd found out so far from the files Eleanor had left him.

 **"Adam is the source for all Plasmids, without Adam to implement the changes for the gene therapy then it's entirely likely that it'll take years for the changes to take effect inside the body or it might just outright kill the individual when it attempts to overwrite DNA, without Adam, there are no Plasmids. The main problem being of course that** **there's not much left, if any."** Taking the silence in the room as an invitation to continue, Delta did so.

 **"Originally Adam was harvested from a specific species of sea slug that lived at the same depth as Rapture, when simply harvesting them wasn't enough to keep up with the demand, Fontaine come up with a plan. Said plan involve implanting them into girls, it gave the slugs everything it needed to grow and to grow and as a result more Adam was created from them, when that wasn't enough the 'Little Sisters' as they had been dubbed, were let out into Rapture to harvest more Adam from the dead, again increasing the yield of Adam gathered. However Eleanor and I managed to save the Little sisters just before I died, for the second time.**

 **All that were left was the sea slugs at the bottom of the ocean. Here let me play the audio clip that Eleanor made."** Jack perked up at this, she hadn't heard her mothers voice since she was a child.

"Is this thing on?" Came Eleanor's voice from Delta's Omni-tool. "Ok so, what happened after we got out of Rapture? Well after we managed to get the Little sisters out of Rapture in 1968 it well, it began to fall apart, since there were no Little Sisters, Adam production went down to almost none existence. And of course by that time the Splicers couldn't have children, their bodies were barely holding together as it was so even they few who knew how to make Little sisters couldn't, there was no children anywhere in Rapture... So every Splicer in Rapture immediately started to go after what few sea slugs were left on the ocean floor while anyone who was sane enough to use a Bathysphere got out while they still could, none of the Splicers from what I can find managed to make it out though, they just went insane, not even thinking of leaving, just searching for more Adam." There was a pause and what sounded like paper shuffling in the background.

"So for a long while Rapture was in decline with people killing each other over what few drops of Adam was left, the Big Daddy's continued to maintain the city, all while looking for Little Sisters to protect. At this time people realised that even a Big Sister would have some Adam on them, if only left over from when they were a Little Sister, but the Big Sisters simply left to go to other parts of Rapture that had been cut off, like Minerva's Den. Eventually the Splicers all died out, still at this point there was still some sea slugs surviving, just in area's people couldn't get to."

More shuffling paper could be heard, along with a few choice swearwords. "Well father, after you passed away... again, in 1968 we left Rapture... I-I pushed your body back into the water... though considering the fact that I'm recording these in the hopes you'll hear them one day... well, I might have been a bit pre-emptive when I pushed you in." A small, sad giggle could be heard from the audio clip.

"Anyway me and the other Little Sisters we saved were on the surface in Sinclair's escape sub, once we got to shore we managed to get in contact with Dr Tenenbaum and Mr Porter, they let us live with them until we could look after ourselves while _she_ got committed to a care home in France where no one understood her, anyway the surface was a very weird place at the time father, oh and I didn't find this out until much later but Dr Tenenbaum and Mr Porter both had there genes 'fixed' so they could continue their research without worrying about time constraints, they were a... weird couple, more on that later though. Ok... ah yes here I was, in the end though we never really moved out, I just helped them out with their research while trying to keep the Little Sisters in school and out of trouble, surprising hard when I was outnumbered by them... still it was full of good memories..."

"Of course that wasn't to say they stayed forever, oh no, by the time that 1986 came round they had all moved out with their respective boyfriends and husbands, one of them even had kids on the way... and the nerve when one of them tried to set me up with someone..." Jack let out a soft giggle when she heard this.

"Anyway once they had all moved out I breached the subject to Dr Tenenbaum and Mr Porter, about going back to Rapture and saving the Big Daddy's and Big Sisters... turns out they had the same idea, turns out that Mr Porter had been a big Daddy, one of the Alpha series like you father, it also turns out that they used The Thinker to calculate the required genetic sequence to return Mr Porter back to his non-Big Daddy self."

"So with several plans in mind we returned to Rapture to save as many as we could, however as I said earlier, during our time away from Rapture all the Splicers died, leaving the Big Daddy's who were maintaining the city and the Big Sisters who had gathered at Minerva's Den, as we had planned we went to help the Big Sister's first, it was easy enough to help them, some of them still remembered when Mr Porter was a Big Daddy, others remembered when I was a Little Sister just like them, but they all remembered Dr Tenenbaum, they trusted her from when she tried to save them when they were still Little Sisters.

After a year of tests upon tests upon tests, we found a cure for them, in fact it was the same cure _she_ used to return me to being a normal girl again, but more importantly the Big Sisters got their minds back and broke the brainwashing that had been used on them from when they first became Little Sisters, we brought them back with us to the surface in order to rehabilitate them back to normal life, it took sometime I can tell you that but it was worth it! But because of the treatment they went through to become a Little Sister they couldn't age properly, Dr Tenenbaum explained it to me but once they hit their early to late twenties they simply stopped aging, like me in that respect, something to do with the Adam in their bodies just stopped their aging process."

- _I really hope to god that no one like Udina hears about this, real immortality? The galaxy would go crazy.-_ Thought Shepard as he listened to the audio tape.

- _Wait, my moms how old? This makes her like...230ish years old!-_ Was Jacks reaction to this.

"So in 1988-" The audio tape continued. "we went back to Rapture to save the Big Daddy's, only this time we weren't so confident we could convince them that we were there to help, in the end though several of the ex-Big Sisters insisted on coming along with us. Not that we had much to worry about it seems, the Big Daddy were to heavily brainwashed for them to take notice of us, even so we began running tests, trying to find the best way to return them back to normal. The only effective way it seems to turn them back to normal was using the cure The Thinker used for Mr Porter, so we set up a computer, not unlike The Thinker but with far more processing power to run the calculations for the gene sequence to turn each Big Daddy back to a normal regular human, along with a lab underneath the computer to create the plasmid for each Big Daddy."

"And it worked, sure we had to get them out of the suits they had been encased in and then perform surgery to return them what was effectively an Alpha stage Big Daddy, but we were getting them back to normal, the only problem was the sheer quantity of Adam needed for each person, but so long as we took our time there was enough Adam. You see the sea slugs had begun increasing in numbers again, the problem being however the Oil Tanker leak of 1992, a massive oil spill on the surface managed to pollute the water as far down as Rapture, killing off any surviving sea slugs." Shock filled the room, Delta paused the audio clip.

" **Without the sea slugs Adam can't be created, it can be recovered by the Big and Little Sisters if they still had their slug implant, we removed the slug implants so that we could free the Little Sisters but the Big Sister's only took Adam to heal themselves in a fight, without them getting hurt in the first place they don't collect Adam, it's likely that all that's left is in Mordin and Eleanor's hands."** Typed Delta, who then pressed play on the audio clip.

"As you can guess without Adam there can't be any Plasmids, not a bad thing in the scheme of things but the problem is that we were partway through curing the Big Daddy's.

So we were forced to halt all progress on curing the remaining Big Daddy's left in Rapture and instead used the formula made by Dr Tenenbaum to ensure that the genetic degradation caused by Adam wouldn't effect them and would buy us enough time to find another method to return them to normal."

"After that it was a mad dash across the ocean floor, trying to find even a single surviving sea slug, but to no avail... but we did find something else father! We found you! We found your suit part buried in the silt and sand, the Big Sisters were the ones to spot you first, thy alerted me to a Big Daddy they had found just on the outskirts of the city, they brought you back for a proper burial... but once I saw it was you I... I couldn't let you go... Dr Tenenbaum suggested that we could bring you back.

She suggested that we use the Lazarus vector to repair your body, after copious amounts of surgery over the following years and returning the Adam I took from you, we managed to bring you back, though you were stuck in a comatose state.

Despite all our efforts we couldn't wake you up, you just remained comatose for years on end... in the end we left you down in Rapture on life support while we made new equipment and new medical practices, all to wake you up and to save the other Big Daddy's. Sometimes we would travel the world and try and find more of the sea slugs but with each passing decade our hopes grew dimmer." A soft sob could be heard from the Audio dairy.

"Anyway, so I'm recording this message for you before I leave Earth to search other planets for more information, perhaps these aliens I keep hearing about have more information, but it'll take some time for tensions to settle between us and the Turian's unfortunately, thankfully there are the Asari and Salarian's out there too, along with a whole multitude of other races.

I'll explain them in a different audio diary, maybe once I have more information, no point bombarding you with all the information until I have now is there?" A chuckle could be heard from the audio clip.

"Alright I'm signing off now on the twenty-third of August, 2158. See you soon father." The audio clip cut out.

"So Eleanor went traveling the galaxy then?" Asked Shepard after the clip ended.

"Seems so, and every time you stopped at a colony she must have run scans for environmental similarities for anything close to Raptures." Miranda mentioned to Jack.

"So no more Adam? Mordin's going to be upset, Miranda, you get to tell him." Said Shepard.

"Wait, why me?"

"Because your the only one so far not to give a story." Shepard said. "Also we'll need to get that bomb sorted out for Jack." After a quick nod from Miranda she left the room to start sorting everything they need out.

"So Jack, are you with us?" Asked Shepard.

"Just tell me where I can bunk."

"Jack, so long as the space isn't already occupied by something or someone and not in the way your welcome to it, just be sure to grab one of the collapsible beds from Kasumi, I know she's 'borrowed' them. Delta, do you want to give her a tour of the ship, show her around?"

Delta nodded and led Jack out of the room. "Hey EDI?"

"Yes Commander Shepard?" Came EDI's voice but surprisingly not her avatar. Shepard shrugged.

"Can you connect me to The Illusive Man? We have a lot to discuss."

* * *

Alright guys that's the next chapter done! Sorry it took so long to come out, I had a hell of a time with writers block and nothing seemed to come together quite right, but I got there! Sorry for the long walls of next as well, just with so much back story to cover I thought it best just to get as much out the way as I could and as you can guess this is the major start of the detour away from the original plot of the Mass Effect series, most of the events will stay the same, after all there's not much you can do to stop the Reapers actually arriving in the first place right? But there may be more changes to the original plot t come as yet, it'll depend on how this goes, anyway! See you guys next month for the newest chapter!


	9. Chapter 9 Horizon Part 1

Hi guys I'm back! Its been so long its ridiculous, so super sorry about that, also this chapter isn't nearly as long as my other ones, so sorry again about that, more info down at the bottom.

So once again with the blanket statement that I own nothing and have nothing to do with Bioware the creators of Mass Effect or Irrational the creators of Bioshock, with nothing left to mention I say onwards with the story once more!

* * *

"So biotic torture facilities... and I thought Akuze was bad, when we're you going to tell me this?" Shepard asked, knowing he wouldn't get an answer. "Or was this more 'Need to know' information that slipped your mind?" Shepard crossed his arms and waited to see just what The Illusive Man would say.

The Illusive Man took his time to answer, casually lighting up a cigar and having a sip from his glass before he answered. "Shepard, if I told you everything that Cerberus had done since its creation, we'd still be here talking when the Reapers arrive, I have said it time and time again, everything I do is for humanity. Admittedly some... _mistakes_ were made at the facility, the facility was one of the first Cerberus facilities to be set up so far from our standard oversight approach, the researchers were... overzealous in their work." He tapped some ash from his cigar into an ash tray.

"Overzealous?" Snarled Shepard. "Those so called 'researchers' tortured those kids for years, or at least the ones that survived, and for what? A better Biotic? How could you even consider that as simply 'overzealous _'_? You think it's _ok_?"

"I don't Shepard, I do what's best for humanity, admittedly the researchers were given a somewhat blank slate once they had received their objectives, this-" He gestured to the report that had appeared on his Omni-tool." -this is not what I ordered, this was a facility that went... rogue. Once we found the facility had been compromised we sent in teams for recovery and disposal. Imagine my surprise when my agents arrived on site to find that the researchers had been torturing children to increase their biotic potential? Cerberus didn't even find out about Jack or patient Zero as she was called until my analysts poured over the data three weeks after she and the other subjects escaped the facility." The Illusive Man poured himself a fresh drink after stubbing out what was left of his cigar.

"Several scientists and guards actually survived the fallout from the Patient Ze- Jack's 'daring' escape, they were found dead in their cells the morning after the report found its way to my desk, detailing exactly what was found to be happening at the facility and what they had done and encouraged whilst at there-" The Illusive Man pulled up the images for the Commander. "-nothing was seen by either the guards on duty nor did anything show up on CCTV, one moment breakfast is proceeding as usual, the next, they're dead." The Illusive Man nodded to the images to illustrate his point, a video clip from a security camera played, one moment watching several of the prisoners eating a meal before switching over and revealing the mess they had made during their final moments.

"I have since encouraged rumours that it would happen to others if they fail Cerberus to such a degree again." He paused again, enjoying a newly lit cigar while Shepard glanced over the images.

The bodies had been well and truly torn apart, Shepard began to cycle through the images and video clips as The Illusive Man looked on, each photo showed a different body, one showed a male scientist who had been torn apart - limbs first, another male scientist whose arms appeared to have been shredded along with the majority of his chest - leaving a gaping hole where his heart would normally be, another showcased the exact colour of several organs that really should be inside the body, not on the outside as they had been left.

- _This... attack... -_ Shepard continued looking through the images _\- whoever killed these men wanted them to suffer, at least a bit before they died -_ Shepard looked at the blood splatter left by several of the bodies, one image showed the blood having sprayed high into the air with droplets everywhere to start with, only for the blood to gradually pool across the floor, likely as the victim's heart rate gradually slowed as he succumbed to his wounds.

"So, someone managed to kill these men whilst you had them under surveillance?" Shepard checked the images once more, each one taken from the same angle but in a different room each time, a security camera of some sort. "And you don't know who did it?"

"I have my... suspicions, only a few individuals had the capability and the access the necessary systems to pull this off without leaving traces, none of them however are with Cerberus any longer." The Illusive Man concluded with a nod, making Shepard wonder if any of those people were still alive. "In any case-" He said, changing the subject. "-I've received reports of unusual 'ghost' signals at far outskirts of several systems in the Shadow sea. I have several agents stationed on several colonies already, so be ready to move if we get anything."

This caught Shepard's attention. "'Ghost' signals? Which colonies are most likely to be attacked?"

"We don't know." The Illusive Man began pulling up various records, statistics and simulations on his Omni-tool before transmitting them to Shepard. "There are eight sponsored colonies in the Shadow sea, however the population density isn't high enough on five of them to make them much of a worthy target for the Collectors, but again, those are just the sponsored colonies in the Shadow Sea, my operatives believe that there may be as many as sixteen other colonies, all either privately funded or-" An alarm started sounding off from The Illusive man's Omni-tool at that moment, Shepard held his silence while The Illusive Man checked and double checked his Omni-tool before confirming what they both suspected, an attack. "Horizon's comm network just went dead Shepard." The Illusive Man stated.

Shepard immediately activated his comm and began relaying his orders across the ship. "Joker! Set a course to Horizon, full speed, I want stealth systems activated the moment we reach the system, we'll need them."

"Aye Commander, route plugged in, one primary Relay and two secondary relays to destination - ETA... eighty minutes." Replied Joker as the ship trembled as it began to glide to the closest relay.

"Attention all hands, we have a possible Collector attack on Horizon in the shadow sea, I want all hands ready, lock down all loose items in the event of possible ship to ship combat, this is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill."

"Commander, this is the most warning we've ever had, has Mordin delivered the counter-measure yet?" Frowned The Illusive Man.

Shepard grimaced. "Not yet."

"Well let's just hope he works well under pressure." The Illusive Man nodded before dismissing Shepard and de-activating the comm link.

He settled himself down in his chair and debated on what he could do next. Nothing he could do in relation to Horizon unfortunately, Shepard and his team knew what they were doing and would get there long before any of his assets could, not that his assets would be able to do much if they somehow got there before the Normandy did, without Mordin's expertise with alien biology and no counter-measure for use against Collector swarms they'd be nothing more than more casualties for the Collectors.

It was now a waiting game he thought to himself, sooner or later he'd hear about what happened and whether it was good news or bad news, it didn't matter, ultimately Cerberus would come out on top, always did. In the meantime, Delta's granddaughter... that was unexpected, he had read through the reports sent from the facility during its operation, from the numbers of potential biotics to stages of biotic growth in the subjects, Jack however was an enigma, one who's biotic potential and unusual DNA was never solved, Batarian's didn't keep records of what colonies their 'goods' came from, only what colonies they had previously attacked. Still, a puzzle for latter perhaps.

"Rachel?" He called for his secretary using his omni-tool, it paid to have a good secretary when running an organisation as big as Cerberus. "Tell the good doctor that I expect a report from him within the next hour on Kai Lengs progress through the gene tonics, along with an estimated timescale before his genetic degradation compromises him." After giving his secretary a few more instructions he shifted in his seat and poured himself a fresh glass of whiskey, his last for the day depending on the outcome of Horizon.

"Let's see how long he lasts this time." He muttered to himself.

* * *

-Meanwhile in the canteen-

"This is the canteen area-" Said Miranda as she showed Jack around the ship along with Delta. "-due to everyone having different sleep cycles, MRE's are always available on demand, but Mess Sergeant Gardner cooks fresh food throughout the 'day' cycle so there'll normally have some food in the fridge or cooking if you're hungry." She motioned to the kitchen area as she said this. "Just try not to be in here during a combat situation if possible." Seeing Jack raise her eyebrow in curiosity Miranda explained further.

"A combination of Mass effect fields and magnetic locks are used to keep everything locked down during ship to ship combat, but that stops if there is too much of a power draw on the drive core-" She grimaced. "-once that happens, food, utensils and anything else not properly secured starts flying everywhere during combat situations." She grimaced. "No one likes hot soup and knives floating around during ship to ship combat."

Jack nodded in understanding, normally mass effect fields would simulate gravity and subsequently hold everything down during normal ship operations, however these would normally be the first to go during combat operations, magnetic locks were then used to ensure that anything locked away, stayed that way, but any electromagnetic locks can fail if the power drops too much.

"That-" Miranda pointed to the other end of the room where Garrus had holed himself up. "- is the main battery, you'll find Garrus there." When Jack raised another eyebrow query, Miranda just sighed. "The Turian you met earlier?"

Jack remembered him then, - _easy going guy, for a Turian anyway-_ , she mused as she remembered seeing him earlier, when he turned up with Shepard after her grandfather wiped the floor with the Blue Suns, rather than be shocked or impressed with what he'd done, Garrus just seemed to... assess the situation, ready to act as needed.

"Anyway-" Miranda continued. "-if you want to know anything about guns, armour or tactics you see him or Jacob up in the armoury, if you want to find... 'alternative tactics' speak the Zaeed... or Grunt? Maybe? On our right-" Miranda gestured to her right to further reiterate which direction she meant. "- is the Medical Bay, Dr Chakwas can fix you up if you get any injuries during missions and she always keeps a supply of Medi-gel on hand if you need more or run low." Dr Chakwas noticed them through the window and gave them a cheery wave, to which Jack hesitantly responded.

"And finally, on this floor is my office which is directly opposite the Medical Bay, any questions?" Just as she asked the question a priority one call came through on her Omni-tool, only two people had that line, The Illusive Man and Commander Shepard, who it came from wasn't important however, what mattered was always the contents.

"What is it?" She asked after making sure the channel was private.

"Miranda! Just finished speaking to your boss, Horizons comm systems just went dark, suspected Collector attack." Answered Shepard.

"Damn it!" She was stunned, every time there was a raid there was at least two to three weeks between them, if it really was Collectors then there had to be something special on Horizon, it had only been a week since their last known activity. "We should have had more time! What caused them to go after Horizon?" She made her way to the main Battery after gesturing for Jack and Delta to follow her.

"No idea, Joker already has us on route there now, we have eighty minutes... sorry seventy-five minutes now to have everyone ready, that's debriefed, armoured, armed and in the shuttle ready for deployment, can't take risks against the Collectors, we're all going in."

"Understood, I'm on the crew deck now with Jack and Delta so I'll grab Garrus and bring them up to the armoury."

"Good, I'll grab Mordin and Jacob, Zaeed and Grunt are already in the CIC, though I think they and Garrus are the only ones that don't need to get ready for combat, meet you in five minutes." The Comm link went dead as Miranda entered the main Battery.

Garrus looked up from his work bench to see Miranda stroll into his work space followed by Delta and the newly recruited Jack, both looking puzzled as they trailed behind Miranda.

"Miranda, what's up? Another miss-"

"Horizons comm network just went down." She interrupted, she activated her Omni-tool and began filling them all in on the situation. "Shepard just got off the line to The Illusive Man, ever since colonies began going dark Cerberus has had active comm lines constantly broadcasting from potential high value targets, Deadman switches, no signal means alarms start ringing, Horizon was one of them, the plan was the moment any comm line goes down we go in and investigate; however, this attack is sooner than expected." Miranda lead them out of the main battery and back to the elevator, as they passed the canteen area Mess Sergeant Garner tossed them several emergency ration packs before continuing to lock everything down in the kitchen. "Joker already has us on route to Horizon now, current ETA is approximately seventy-five minutes."

"What do we know about the Colony stationed on Horizon? Military strength? Defences?" Garrus asked as they bundled into the elevator.

"Nothing yet, Horizons a fairly new Colony-" Miranda frowned as she thought of something."-but... the Alliance does have several outreach programs to try to better and prepare colonies for potential attacks from pirates and raiders, so there may be something we could use. EDI, try and pull up as much information as you can about Horizon and the Alliances outreach program."

EDI replied barely a second later. "Understood Ms Lawson, sending all relevant information to your Omni-tool now."

* * *

"Ok so here's the situation thus far." Shepard began once they had all gathered in the briefing room. "Horizon's a fresh new colony that's only been up a couple of years but has already got a sizable population, over six hundred thousand last count, fairly pleasant living conditions, average surface temperature of thirteen degrees, nothing to write home about, but surface gravity is point seven, our weapons are going to feel like they have more kick to them even with weapon VI's adjusting so watch for recoil and keep to controlled bursts, also the atmosphere is denser than Earth's so watch for that too."

Several heads nodded at this, already updating their weapon VI's with the relevant information. "Now Mordin, you said you have a counter-measure ready for the seeker swarm?"

Mordin activated his Omni-tool, bringing up several holographic images of different armour suits and one of the insects from a seeker swarm. "Managed to identify primary seeker swarm hunting techniques, ingenious really, won't go into full details now, but based on advanced Friend or Foe system utilising shield emitter frequencies, not sure what Collectors shield vibration frequency is exactly but found an approximate from Seeker swarm insect, however only found common 'Friend' identifier, seeker swarm identifies friendlies using emitter vibrational speed frequency, can mimic effect using mass effect shields-" He paused for a moment.

"-also, could be used as high-speed communication system...-" Mordin mumbled to himself. "-perhaps research later... Anyway, simple modification to shield systems should make seeker swarm see us as a collector forces, however must be careful, larger the swarm more chance of secondary identification routines activating, will have to think of other solutions to that problem." Mordin began to adjust the shield settings on each of the squad members, making sure that the seekers wouldn't attack them whilst also making sure the shields still stopped weapon fire.

"Alright, so we have the counter-measure, what's next?" Asked Zaeed while checking out the shield modifications Mordin had done.

"That's going to be the fun and or dull part, we don't know exactly what to expect, we won't even know if it's the Collectors until we enter the system, we just expect it is, if it's a slave raid or pirates then the Normandy will remain in stealth mode while we relay information back to the Alliance, if the numbers are manageable the Normandy will engage with intent to destroy or disable the ships if possible, if not... we'll delay the ships until reinforcements arrive. That's the plan if it's not the Collectors." Shepard looked around the room at everyone. "If it is the Collectors we send a data package to the Alliance and proceed to run interference, I want everyone on the ground for this one."

"Now as I said earlier Horizon's a new colony, so the basic layout should generally match previous colonies to a point.

"We'll be moving in two teams, Zaeed, Jacob and Grunt, Delta and Jack, you're in team bravo with Garrus as leader, your gaol is to get everyone's attention, you see a high profile target, you take it, if you find information on why or where the colonists are being held, you grab it, rescue any available colonists while you're at it but don't risk yourselves, I hate saying it but...be ready to leave them behind once they're safe, we can't hang around to keep them safe, we have a whole colony to save." Several individuals bristled at the thought of just leaving people, there was no real 'safety' with the Collectors around, Veetor's data showed that.

"You'll also be known as the 'See me, shoot me' team, best of luck." The tension seemed to lessen in the room thanks to Shepard's comment, with those not in the 'see me, shoot me' team giggled to themselves. "Now the rest of the team, Mordin, Kasumi and Miranda will be with me where we will approach our primary objective, Miranda, if you'd like to explain?"

Miranda brought up a display of a Guardian tower, a transmitter and a map of the colony on Horizon. "Team Bravo's objective is to pull any and all attention away from team Alpha, whose main object will be getting to the transmitter in the middle of the colony, due in no small part of an Alliance outreach program with Colonies in the terminus systems many Colonies are being issued standard Guardian towers to increase their safety, however Cerberus has intercepted reports that the locals have had trouble activating it, the Alliance responded by sending people to fix it, so far no luck, Team Alpha's goal will be to get to the transmitter and with EDI's help, activate them and use them to drive off the Collector ship, the Normandy SR-2 is better than the SR-1 but it still can't take down a Collector ship not yet anyway."

"Sounds good." Grunt liked the idea of the 'See me shoot me' team, it got his blood pumping, an odd excitement washed through him as he imagines the enemies they'd be fighting, _finally, a good fight!_

"Right, so I take it while the Collectors are taking pot shots at us you'll be the ones calibrating a really big gun instead of me? Jeez if it weren't for my scars I'd be wondering why you dragged me along." Chuckled Garrus, his remaining mandible twitching in mirth.

"What? No... I brought you along Garrus cos you're my secret weapon!" Said Shepard, a shit eating grin spreading across his face. "Why, with a face like yours we could probably scare the Collector's away without firing a bullet."

Grunt just started laughing at them. "With faces like yours, getting a female Krogan won't be too hard, they like the scars, heh heh heh."

"Ha! Dating advice from a Krogan, and I thought I looked bad." Said Zaeed before he got interrupted by the ship lurching suddenly, before smoothing out again.

"Joker, what was that? We haven't hit anything have we?" Asked Shepard.

"Mister Moreau and I has been calculating our mass along with drive emissions on approach to the relay for the past five minutes and twenty-eight seconds-" EDI popped up on her holographic display."-we believe we may be able to reduce our travel time by approximately five minutes per-relay by ensuring the Normandy's standard drift is to our benefit, new ETA calculated to thirty-five minutes before we arrive in system, some turbulence to be expected however during relay transit."

Hearing that they would soon be arriving, everyone sobered up, there was work to be done.

"Thanks EDI." EDI's avatar seemingly nodded before vanishing. "Alright everyone you heard to lady thirty-five minutes to go, buddy up, I want everyone checking one another's armour and shields, fresh ammo blocks and thermal clips in your guns and all modded ammo accounted for," Shepard watched as everyone jumped into action. This time, they won't be too late.

* * *

High above the planet of Horizon, the Collector General looked on impassively at its sensors as the last of the comm-buoys were destroyed, cutting off all communication, it was time for another harvest.

* * *

Alright guys, I'm here to apologise, I haven't been spending nearly as much time as I could have and should have on this, I have a hundred things I could use as an excuse but at the end of the day, that's all they are, excuses. In any case, I'm Sorry.

My work hours should be stable now (fingers crossed) so I should be able to spend more time on getting this written, as you can tell this chapter is far shorter than my other ones, I'm going to try and do short chapters over the next few months to see how it plays out, so fingers crossed guys ill be back with more chapters sooner and faster (fingers crossed), see you next time guys for the next chapter!


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